BOSTON SCHOOL SERIES 




ANIMAL LIFE 



ON THE 



#LOgE 



BOSTON SCHOOL SUPPLY CO, 



/ 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 



W^r 



©Imp, _S* . ©opjjrig^t !$* 

Shelfi _CJT*^ 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



Boston ^clt00l JisrUs 



Animal Life on the Globe 



BY 

G. G. CHISHOLM, M.A., B.Sc, F.R.G.S. 



A Geographical Reading Book, describing some Typical Animals and 

Illustrating the Relation of their Habits to the Character 

of the Countries in which the animals are 

respectively found, as well as the 

broader distinctions of 

Animal Life 




BOSTON ^(V^ 

BOSTON SCHOOL SUPPLY COMPANY 

15 BROMFIELD STREET 

1895 



.CS> 



Copyright, 1895, 
By Boston School Supfly Company. 



TYPOGRAPHY BY C. J. PETERS & SON, 
BOSTON. 



CONTENTS. 



LESSON 










PAGE 


I. 


The Part of the World round the 




North Pole 


7 


II. 


The Reindeer (1) 








10 


III. 


The Reindeer (2) . 








13 


IV. 


The Polar Bear (1) 








17 


V. 


The Polar Bear (2) 








20 


VI. 


The Polar Bear (3) 








23 


VII. 


The Walrus (1) 








26 


VIII. 


The Walrus (2) 








29 


IX. 


The Whale (1) 








32 


X. 


The Whale (2) 








36 


XL 


The Brown Bear (1) 








40 


XII. 


The Brown Bear (2) 








. 44 


XIII. 


The Bison (1) . 








47 


XIV. 


The Bison (2) . 








50 


XV. 


The Bison (3) . 








53 


XVI. 


The Beaver (1) 








56 


XVII. 


The Beaver (2) 








60 


tVIII. 


The Gull . 

6 








63 





COXTENTS. 


LESSON 




XIX. 


Swallows ...... 


XX. 


Bats 


XXI. 


The Silkworm 


XXII. 


The Locust 


XXIII. 


Ants 


XXIV. 


The Salmon (1) 


XXV. 


The Salmon (2) 


XXVI. 


The Kangaroo . 


XXVII. 


The Tropical or Hot Countries 


XXVIII. 


The Lion (1) 


XXIX. 


The Lion (2) 


XXX. 


The Lion (3) 


XXXI. 


The Elephant (1) 


XXXII. 


The Elephant (2) 


XXXIII. 


The Rhinoceros and the Hippo- 




potamus ...... 


XXXIV. 


The Giraffe 


XXXV. 


The Camel (1) 


XXXVI. 


The Camel (2) 


XXXVII. 


The Camel (3) 


tXXVIII. 


The Boa Constrictor 


XXXIX. 


The Condor . 


XL. 


Turtles ...... 



ANIMAL LIFE. 





LESSON I. 




far'-thest 


ea'-si-ly stop'-ped 


spread'-ing 


al'-ways 


win'-ter mid'-dle 


to-geth-er 


gar'-ment 


warmth bur'-i-ed 


bar '-ley 



THE PART OF THE WORLD ROUND THE 
NORTH POLE. 

1. You know by this time where to find 
the North Pole, when you look at a globe. 
The North Pole on a globe stands for the 
point farthest north on this round world. If 
you could reach that point, you could not go 
a step away from it, without going back again 
towards the south. 

2. But no one ever has reached that spot 
on the earth: and if you were to go as far 
north as you could, you would easily see why 
the North Pole has never been reached by 
man. 

7 



8 THE PART OF THE WORLD. 

3. You would find that, long before you 
got near the Pole, you were stopped by vast 
fields of ice and snow spreading as far as 
you could see. 

4. The cold would become so great that 
you could not bear it, and those who have 
tried to go over the ice to the North Pole 
have always found that they could not go 
very far. 

5. Even in the lands that are not so near 
the North Pole, many things are quite un- 
like what they are in our own land. Very 
strange it would seem to any boy or girl, 
who could spend a year in one of them. 

6. For in these lands the winter lasts 
eight or nine months, and in the middle of 
the winter there is no day at all. For weeks 
together the sun is never seen, and the light 
of the stars shows only the white garment 
of deep snow, in which all the earth is 
wrapt. 

7. Before and after this long night, the 
days are very short, but they grow longer 



ROUND THE NORTH POLE. 9 

and longer when the summer is near. At 
last the people in those lands enjoy longer 
summer days than we ever know at home, 
and during the middle of the summer there 
is no night, just as in the middle of the 
winter there is no day. 

8. Under the warmth of the sun during 
these long days, the snow quickly melts 
away. In a very short time the whole face 
of the land is changed. Green plants and 
bright flowers spring up, where the ground 
was so long buried under snow. 

9. So quickly do plants grow, that in 
some parts of these countries, crops of bar- 
ley can be sown and reaped within about two 
months. 

10. You may be sure, that in these north- 
ern lands, the animals must be very unlike 
any we have at home. Think for a moment 
what would become of our sheep and cattle 
there. They could not stand the cold, and if 
they could, they would find no food to keep 
them alive through the long winter. 



10 THE REINDEER. 

11. Yet there are many animals that dwell 
in these countries, and in the next few les- 
sons you will read about some of these, and 
learn how they are fitted to thrive in a 
part of the world where our animals would 
die. 



LESSON II. 

height an'-i-mals pic'-ture shour-ders 

ea'-si-er her-biv'-o-rous suck'-led moth'-er 

hoofs cu-ri-ous sur-face more'-over 

broad rein'-deer mam'-mal spread 

THE REINDEER. 1. 

1. The reindeer is the first of the animals 
spoken of in the last lesson, about which you 
will have to read. The picture on page 14 
shows vou what it is like. Its height at the 
shoulders is nearly four feet. 

2. Now that you know what sort of a 
country it lives in, you will be at a loss to 
think what kind of food it eats. You will 
feel sure that it cannot feed like our own 



THE KEIXDEER. 



11 



deer on grass. No ; it does not feed on 
grass, yet it does feed wholly on herbs or 
plants, or things got from plants. It is for 
that reason called herbivorous, which simply 
means herb-eating. 

3. The young reindeer does not feed on 
herbs, however. It is suckled by its mother 
with milk, and 
because it does 
so, the rein- 
deer is called 
a mammal. 

4. There are 
a great many 



feed their Moose - 

young in the same way. All of these are 
mammals, and the reindeer, like our own 
deer, and like the sheep or cow, is called 
an herbivorous mammal, because when full- 
grown it feeds on herbs. 

5. What sort of herb does the reindeer 
feed on ? It is a very curious one, and very 




12 THE REINDEER. 

unlike the grass on which our cattle feed. 
It is one that is not killed by the winter 
cold, or spoiled by the snow, and because 
the reindeer feeds on it, it is called the rein- 
deer moss. 

6. This plant has no stem or leaves. It 
looks more like a sponge than anything else, 
except that its color is a greenish white. 

7. In some way which we cannot explain, 
the reindeer knows where to find this plant, 
even when buried deep under the snow, and 
on coming to such a spot, it begins to scrape 
away the snow with its forefeet, until it 
reaches the moss. 

8. Now you know how the reindeer is 
able to live in countries so strange as those 
of which you read in the first lesson. But 
there are other things also, that make this 
animal well fitted for the life it leads. 

9. Its feet are so made, that it is easier 
for it to run on the snow than it would be 
for an animal like a cow. Hoofs cover the 
toes, as they do in the cow, but the hoofs are 



THE KEINDEER. 



13 



very broad, and the feet are split between 
the hoofs pretty high up, so that when they 
touch the ground, they spread out over a 
large surface. In that way they help to keep 
the animal from sinking deep in the snow. 

10. Moreover, there are long hairs under 
the feet, and these by getting caught in the 
snow have the same use. In summer as well 
as in winter, this kind of foot is of use to the 
reindeer, for when the snow is all melted away, 
its place is taken by soft marshy ground. 



LESSON III. 

peo-ple use'-ful Nor'-way Swe-den 

islands blank'-ets sup-ply 7 aF-most 

freezing glue sin'-ews fro 7 — zen 

thread leath'-er weighting cloth'-ing 



THE REINDEER. 2. 

1. To the people who dwell in those icy 
lands in the far north, where reindeer herds 
are found, this animal is so useful that many 
of them could not live without it. 



14 



THE REINDEER. 



2. The people who make most use of it 
are the Lapps, whose home is in the north 
of Europe, between the White Sea and At- 




lantic Ocean, north of the Arctic Circle, and 
is called Lapland. 

3. By the Lapps the reindeer has been 
tamed, and it is kept by them in large flocks, 



THE REINDEER. 15 

like sheep or cows among us. In a coun- 
try where little else is to be had, the Lapps 
get from the reindeer almost all that they 
need. They get food and clothing and things 
to sell to the people of other countries, so that 
they may have money to buy what their own 
country does not supply them with. 

4. Almost every part of the reindeer is made 
use of. The milk, blood, and flesh are all used 
as food. The milk is very thick and rich, much 
thicker and richer than that of the cow. 

5. The flesh is good to eat, and the Lapps 
can keep it for any length of time in winter 
by freezing it. 

6. Frozen reindeer meat is one of the 
things that they sell to the people, who 
live where there are no reindeer. They also 
sell the hoofs and branching horns to make 
glue. Out of the sinews of the reindeer 
thread is made. The skin is made into a 
very good leather. 

7. But the reindeer has other uses also. 
In summer it carries loads strapped across 



16 THE KEINDEEK. 

its back, and in winter it is much more useful, 
because it can then draw sledges across the 
snow. The sledges are shaped something like 
the front half of a boat, very sharp in front, 
so that they can be drawn along very easily. 

8. A sledge like that with a man in it, or 
with a load weighing nearly two hundred 
pounds, can be drawn by a single reindeer 
over the snow, at the rate of about nine miles 
an hour. As the reindeer does not easily get 
tired, but can keep up this speed for many 
hours, a Lapp may travel more than a hun- 
dred miles in one day. 

9. Even in winter the Lapps have to travel 
a great deal, for they must always be near 
the food of the reindeer, and when the rein- 
deer moss is nearly eaten up at one place, 
they must move to another. Hence they do 
not live in proper houses, but, cold as their 
country is, they live in tents, which they 
can carry about with them. 

10. By clothing themselves in the skins 
of the reindeer, which are covered with long 



THE POLAR BEAK. IT 

hair or fur, and by using these skins for 
bedding and blankets, they manage to keep 
themselves warm enough. 



LESSON IV. 



suck-les her-biv'-o- rous ea'-si-er ca'-nine 

tru'-ly car-niv-o-rous po'-lar ter-ri-ble 

pieces length weight no'-tice 

in-steacT seiz -ing up'-per mam-mals 

THE POLAR BEAR. — 1. 

1. The polar bear, like the reindeer, suck- 
les its young with milk, and is therefore a 
mammal. But it is not an herbivorous mam- 
mal, as the reindeer is. for it does not feed 
on plants, or on anything got from plants. 
It feeds on flesh only, and so it is a carnivo- 
rous mammal. 

2. Carnivorous means just the same as the 
easier word flesh-eating. Dogs and cats, as 
you know, eat flesh, and if they were wild 
and lived as they liked, they would eat flesh 
only, and then they too would be truly 
carnivorous animals. 



18 



THE POLAR BEAR. 



3. If you look into a dog's mouth, you 
may see four sharp-pointed teeth, longer 
than the rest, one at each side of the front, 




in both the upper and lower jaw. These 
teeth are called canines or dogs' teeth. Now, 
the polar bear has very long and terrible ca- 



THE POLAR BEAR. 19 



nines. Indeed, all carnivorous animals have 
canines. Can you not tell why ? 

4. Because they need teeth to tear in 
pieces the flesh of the animals on which 
they feed. The teeth of the reindeer are 
very unlike the teeth of the polar bear, for 
they are never used to tear flesh. 

5. The polar bear is larger than the rein- 
deer. It is, in fact, the largest of all carniv- 
orous mammals that live on land. Sometimes 
a full-erown male is eight and a half feet 
in length from nose to tail, and its weight 
may be as much as eight hundred pounds. 
A polar bear of that size in one scale would 
weigh down five men in the other scale. 

6. Look at the pictures of the polar bear 
and the reindeer, and notice how different 
the two animals are in other ways. The 
polar bear has no horns. No carnivorous 
animal has horns; nor has any carnivorous 
animal hoofs like those of the reindeer. 

7. Instead of hoofs, you see on the polar 
bear's feet, short, sharp-curved claws. These 



20 THE POLAR BEAR. 

are something like a cat's claws, only the 
polar bear cannot draw them in as you know 
a cat can. 

8. But their use is the same as in the 
cat. The polar bear uses its claws in seiz- 
ing and killing the large animals on which it 
feeds, just as the cat uses its claws in catch- 
ing a little mouse. 





LESSON V. 




al'-ways 


re-mem -ber 


cov-er-ed 


rea-son 


o'-cean 


stretch-ing 


sea-son 


far'-ther 


search 


oc-curs' 


car'-ry-ing 


surface 


clum'-sy 


chief-ly 


aid-ed 


hair'-y 



THE POLAR BEAR. — 2. 

1. Now, how did the animal get the name 
Polar Bear ? Well, you remember how you 
were told in the first lesson of a part of 
the world near the North Pole, where the 
ocean is always covered with ice. That is 
farther north than where the reindeer lives. 
It is the ice that is the true home of the polar 



THE POLAR BEAR. 21 

bear, and it is for that reason that men have 
given it its name. 

2. The border of the ice is not always 
found in the same place. In winter, the 
vast ice-fields round the North Pole cover 
more and more of the ocean, stretching far- 
ther to the south. Then the polar bear too 
comes farther south. 

3. In summer, on the other hand, the ice- 
fields are partly melted away, so that their 
edge is found farther north. In that season, 
therefore, we must go farther north before 
meeting with the polar bear. 

4. But neither in summer nor in winter 
is the polar bear to be seen often on land. 
When it is found there, it is, as a rule, only 
on the shore, though sometimes, when pressed 
by hunger, it will roam some miles inland, in 
search of land animals to kill and eat. 

5. It may even happen now and then, that 
the polar bear is seen on land, far away from 
the ice-fields round the Pole. When that 
occurs, it is because a piece of ice carrying 



22 THE POLAR BEAR. 

one of these animals has got broken off, and 
has floated away on the surface of the ocean, 
while the bear was sleeping. 

6. Now that you know where the polar 
bear lives, you can easily see why it must 
be carnivorous or flesh-eating. It can find 
no plants on the ice on which to feed, and 
it is thus driven to kill animals for its food. 
For this it is well fitted in many ways. 

7. Though a clumsy -looking animal, it is 
a good runner on snow, being aided, like the 
reindeer, by the shape of its feet. Though 
so different from the feet of the reindeer in 
some ways, the feet of the polar bear are yet 
like those of the reindeer in being very large, 
and also in being hairy underneath. In the 
last lesson, you were told how these things 
help an animal in running on snow. 

8. But the food of the polar bear is chiefly 
found in the water ; and it is because the 
polar bear is so good a swimmer and diver, 
that it is able to live where it does. 



THE POLAR BEAR. 



23 





LESSON VI. 




chief-ly 


con-sists' 


north'-ern 


flip'-pers 


broad 


pad'-dles 


re-main / 


prey 


breathe 


keen'-ness 


scent 


col'-or 


ac'-tive 


ad-van'-tage 


u'-su-al-ly 


nat'-ur-al 


var-ue 


es-teem'-ed 


warmth 


man'-a-ges 



THE POLAR BEAR. —3. 

1. In the last lesson, you were told that 
the food of the polar bear is chiefly found in 
the water. What is this food ? It consists 
partly of fishes, and for these the bear always 
has to dive and swim. But there is another 
kind of animal, of which the polar bear is 
very fond, and of which there are a great 
many in the northern seas. 

2. This animal is the seal, which is itself a 
carnivorous mammal, living chiefly on fishes. 
It has long canines like the polar bear's ; 
but instead of legs it has broad flippers, 
which serve as paddles in the water. The 
seal lives chiefly in the water, where it is as 
much at home as the fishes which it makes 
its prey. 



24 THE POLAR BEAR. 

3. Yet it cannot remain always under 
water as fishes can. No mammals can live 
without air to breathe ; and therefore seals, 
when they want to breathe, must come to 
the surface. 

4. Now, this gives a great chance to the 
polar bear. Where the water is covered 
with ice, the seal must always have a hole 
in the ice, to which it may come to breathe. 
This the polar bear knows, and it watches at 
one of these holes for hours together, ready 
to kill the seal with a single blow of the paw, 
as soon as it shows its head at the opening. 

5. In finding these holes, the polar bear 
is aided by its great keenness of scent ; for 
its sense of smell is so sharp, that it can 
discover seals' breathing holes by that means 
under the snow, just as the reindeer can dis- 
cover the buried reindeer moss. 

6. But seals are often caught by the polar 
bear on the ice, where they rest and sleep. 
And in capturing prey in this way, even its 
color is an advantage to the bear. The 



THE POLAR BEAR. 25 

young animal is as white as snow, so that it 
cannot easily be made out. When older, the 
polar bear is yellowish, but even then it is 
often able to come pretty close up to its prey 
without being noticed. 

7. But when it has the chance, it always 
dives and swims under the ice, and then 
rises as near as it can get to the point where 
it has seen the seals. When it manages to 
do that, the seals cannot escape. 

8. The male polar bear is always active, 
both in summer and winter, but the female 
usually passes the winter in a long sleep. It 
then lies buried amongst the snow, in a nat- 
ural den made by the warmth of its own 
breath, and in the same way a long tube is 
kept open to the surface, so that the animal 
is not in danger of dying from want of air. 
In most of the animals that pass the winter 
in sleep, the breathing is then almost at a 
stand-still, so that hardly any air is needed. 

9. The polar bear is much hunted by man. 
Its long soft fur is of value, and its flesh is 
highly esteemed as food. 



26 



B 


THE 


WALRUS. 






LESSON VII. 




wal'-rus 


coast 


in-stead' 


ta'-per-ing 


up '-per 


tusks 


sock'-ets 


swor-len 


whisk'-ers 


br is '-ties 


fierce 


ter'-ri-ble 


crea'-tures 


sev'-er-al 


thou'-sand 


puff -ed 



THE WALRUS.-l 

1. This strange-looking animal is met with 
in the same part of the world as the polar 
bear ; only the walrus is found more in the 
water than on the ice, while the polar bear is 
more on the ice than in the water. The wal- 
rus, too, lives, as a rule, nearer land than the 
polar bear, for it is on the coast that it finds 
the food it likes best. 

2. The walrus is, in fact, a kind of seal. 
Like the seals, it has flippers instead of legs, 
and like them, also, it has a body thick in 
the middle, and tapering towards the head 
and tail. This form of body fits it very well 
for swimming through the water, just as a 
boat is fitted for sailing, by being made sharp 
at the bow and the stern. 



THE WALKUS. 27 

3. The walrus is like a seal also in having 
the canine teeth, of which you have now 
heard more than once. But in the walrus 
these canine teeth are not like those of 
either the proper seals or the polar bear. 
They are the chief mark by which the wal- 
rus is known. 

4. They are found only in the upper jaw ; 
but there they grow to a large size, and are 
very large in male walruses. They form true 
tusks, pointing downwards, and reaching far 
below the lower jaw. Sometimes they are 
found to be as much as two feet in length, 
and more than seventeen pounds in weight. 

5. It is chiefly these large tusks that cause 
the head to have such a strange form. The 
sockets in which they are set are holes six or 
seven inches round, so that the upper jaw 
appears greatly swollen and puffed out. On 
the large upper lip are whiskers like those of 
a cat ; but these whiskers are not, properly 
speaking, hairs, but bristles as thick as a 
crow-quill. 



28 THE WALRUS. 

6. Altogether the walrus is a fierce-looking 
creature ; and when you are told that it is 
sometimes over twenty feet in length, and 
nearly a ton and a half in weight, you may 
be ready to suppose that it is one of the most 
terrible beasts of prey in the far north. 

7. But this is not the case. It does, in- 
deed, live partly on small seals and fishes; 
but the food it likes best is small shell-fish, 
like shrimps, and other creatures found on 
the sea-bottom near the shore, and it is also 
very fond of sea-weed. It is thus partly 
herbivorous. 

8. The walrus is mostly found in large 
herds. At one time these herds might con- 
sist of several thousands, but now the num- 
ber of walruses is not nearly so great. 





THE 


WALRUS. 


2 




LESSON VIII. 




yield 


ter'-ri-ble 


weap'-ons 


cer'-tain 


fierce 


de-fence / 


at-tack'-ed 


wad'-dles 


jerks 


flip'-pers 


com-rades 


val'-ue 


tough 


har'-ness 


peace'-a-ble 


be-neath' 


lay'-er 


blub'-ber 


pro-tect -ed 


pierc'-es 


i-vo-ry 


har-poon 


fast'-en-ed 


leath'-er 



29 



THE WALRUS.-2. 

1. Though as a rule a peaceable animal, the 
walrus can make use of its tusks as terrible 
weapons, when it likes. At certain seasons, 
there take place between the males fierce 
battles, in which these weapons often prove 
very deadly. 

2. Having such a means of defence, the 
walrus is not afraid of the polar bear, and 
when it is in the water, not even of man. 
On land or on the ice, however, the walrus 
is rather a helpless creature when attacked 
by man. It cannot run, but only waddles 
and jerks along by means of its flippers. 

3. The walrus is much hunted for several 
reasons. Its strong hide is of great value. 



30 THE WALRUS. 

The leather made out of it is used for harness 
and other things, for which a very strong and 
tough leather is needed. 

4. Then beneath the skin there is a thick 
layer of fat. which is called blubber. This 
is found in all mammals living in cold 
seas, for all mammals in cold countries 
must be protected in some way or other 
against cold. 

5. Those which live on land have thick 
coats of fur, which serve that purpose. But 
the fur of the walrus and other mammals 
living in the sea is not enough ; and so there 
is under the skin a coat of blubber, which 
helps to keep the animal warm. 

6. This blubber yields an oil which is 
highly prized. But the walrus is hunted 
most of all for its tusks, from which is 
obtained a fine kind of ivory. 

7. The chase of the walrus, when carried 
on at sea, is not without danger. A herd 
of walruses will come boldly up to the boat 
of the hunters, and raising their heads out of 



THE WALKUS. - 31 

the water, will try one after another to cap- 
size the boat with a blow from their powerful 
tusks. 

8. One of the men in the boat stands 
ready with a short spear, to which a rope 
is tied, the other end of the rope being 
fastened to the boat. This short spear is 
called a harpoon, and is made like the end 
of a large fishing-hook, so that when it 
pierces the side of a walrus it sticks. 

9. But when a walrus has been struck, 
it darts rapidly through the water, drag- 
ging the boat after it, which is in danger 
of capsizing. Yet in spite of this danger, 
the hunters harpoon one walrus after an- 
other, until there may be as many as six 
tugging at the boat, while their comrades 
remain near lashing the water in fury with 
their tails. When fainting from loss of 
blood, the walruses are pulled to the side 
of the boat and killed. 



32 



2 


THE 


WHALE. 






LESSON IX. 




film 


Green-land 


breathes 


bur'-ied 


moist 


surface 


waF-rus-es 


nos'-tril 


whol-ly 


breath'-ing 


min'-utes 


moist-ure 


sail'-or 


dis'-tance 


whar-ers 


blub -ber 



THE WHALE. — 1. 

1. Theke are many kinds of whales, and 
some of them are the largest of all animals. 
The most useful to man is that called by 
sailors the Right Whale, or the Greenland 
Whale. 

2. It lives chiefly in the northern seas, 
and takes the name of Greenland Whale 
from a country near the North Pole, a 
country almost wholly buried under thick 
masses of ice, except near the sea. 

3. The length of a large whale of this 
kind is from sixty to seventy feet. From 
its form, you would suppose that this ani- 
mal was a fish. It has a long body, taper- 
ing towards the head and tail ; the shape 
of the tail is like what you see in many 



THE WHALE. 



33 



fishes : on the body there is no hair ; more- 
over, it never leaves the water. 

4. Yet it would not be right to call it a 
fish. It is a mammal. It suckles its young 
with milk ; it has warm blood : and it 
breathes at the surface of the water as 
seals and walruses do. 




5. Can any boy or girl see anything in 
the picture of the whale that is not like a 
fish? You may if you look at the tail. Its 
shape is indeed fish-like, but see how it lies. 
The flat sides of the tail are above and below. 



34 THE WHALE. 

and the tips of the tail are at the sides of 
the animal. 

6. The tail of a fish is always placed 
upright, and is moved from side to side in 
swimming, while the whale moves its tail 
up and down. It is chiefly by this move- 
ment of the tail that the animal swims, but 
it is aided by the flippers in front, which 
are somewhat like the fins of a fish, but 
more like the paddles of a seal or a walrus. 

7. The nostrils of the whale are on the 
top of the head, so that it has only to put 
the top of the head above the water, in order 
to breathe. It rises to breathe every eight 
or ten minutes as a rule, but it can remain as 
much as twenty minutes at a time under the 
water. 

8. The breathing of the whale is called 
blowing or spouting. On rising to the sur- 
face, the whale first of all breathes out the 
used-up air from the lungs. Warm air 
coming from the lungs is always moist, as 
you yourself may see at any time by breath- 



THE WHALE. 35 

ing upon a slate. The slate at once is 
covered with a film of moisture. 

9. Now, when the whale blows, this moist- 
ure in its breath is changed into a fine 
spray in the cold air. so that the animal 
seems to be spouting up water. The blow- 
ing of the whale makes a noise which can 
be heard at a great distance. 

10. You do not need to be told now that 
the whale must be kept warm. You re- 
member that the walrus has both fur and 
blubber for the sake of warmth. The whale 
has no fur, but its layer of blubber is all 
the thicker. Sometimes it is as much as 
two feet thick ; and it is chiefly for the oil 
to be got from this blubber, that the ani- 
mal is hunted and killed by men called 
whalers. 



36 



THE WHALE. 



LESSON X. 



arch 

depth 

throat 

tongue 

flesh'-y 



ba-leen' 

mor'-sels 

o-cean 

cu'-ri-ous 

squeez'-ed 



es-cape 
har-poon' 
an'-i-mals 
sur'-face 

swal-low-ed 



fringe 

di-vide' 

gul'-let 

stif-fen 

bod'-ies 



THE WHALE. 




1. The fat or blubber is not the only thing 
for which the whale is killed. In the large 
mouth of the whale, there is something else 
of value, called whalebone, or baleen. The 
use of this baleen to the whale is to help 



THE WHALE. 37 

it to catch its food, for the whale has a very 
curious mode of feeding. 

2. It has a very narrow throat or gullet, 
so that, for so large an animal, it can swal- 
low only small morsels of food ; besides which 
it has no teeth to divide its food. Hence it 
feeds only on small animals with soft bodies, 
and there are very great numbers of such 
animals near the surface of the ocean. 

3. The baleen, along with the tongue of 
the whale, forms a sort of trap in which the 
soft animals are caught. It is made up of 
a great number of horny plates, which hang 
down from the roof of the mouth, and split 
up at their lower end into a fringe, forming 
a kind of brush. 

4. The plates are of such a shape, that a 
hollow is left in the middle of the mouth, and 
the brush has the form of an arch. The hol- 
low is filled up by the large soft fleshy tongue. 

0. As the whale swims rapidly through the 
water with its mouth wide open, hundreds of 
the small animals rush into the gaping hoi- 



38 THE WHALE. 

low. The whale then presses its tongue 
against the baleen brush ; the water is 
squeezed through the brush, and out of 
the whale's mouth, but the little animals 
are causjlit and swallowed. 

6. It is the horny plates of the baleen 
that are most useful to man. They are 
used in many ways, but chiefly to stiffen 
some parts of women's dress. 

7. In the chase of the whale, the whalers 
are exposed to many hardships and dangers. 
They must sail far away into the wintry seas 
of the North or South, near to the edge of 
the great ice-fields, of which you read in the 
first lesson. 

8. Large masses of ice float about on the 
surface of the ocean, and between these a 
ship may get caught and crushed, as if it- 
were a nutshell ; or if it sails up a large 
crack in the ice-fields, it may get frozen in. 
so that it cannot escape. 

9. To strike the animal, the whalers make 
use of a harpoon something like that used 



THE WHALE. 39 

in hunting walruses. But the harpoon of 
the whalers must have a very long line 
fastened to it ; for as soon as the whale is 
struck, it dives quickly to a great depth. It 
stays under water as long as it can, but in 
the end it must rise to breathe. 

10. A second time it is struck with a har- 
poon : and then the whale in its fury will 
often lash the water with its tail again and 
a grain before diving, making the water a 

© © © 

mass of foam mingled with blood. 

11. If the boat of the whalers should be 
too near, a single blow of the tail would be 
enough to throw it high in the air. Soon 
the poor animal is worn out by fury, pain, 
and loss of blood, and the whaler can then 
get near and kill it with a lance. 

12. When dead, the whale is towed to the 
side of the ship, and made fast. It is now 
stripped of its blubber by men who stand 
on its body, shod with spiked boots to keep 
them from slipping. The blubber is at first 
cut off in large blocks, but on board of the 



40 THE BROWN BEAR. 

ship it is freed from useless matter, and 
stored in casks to be carried home to make 
oil. Other men at the same time take the 
whalebone out of the huge mouth. The oil 
and whalebone from a single whale has been 
sold for as much as three thousand dollars. 



LESSON XI. 

sa'-go cit'-ies om-niv -o-rous tur'-nips 

length sum'-nier pro-vok -ed ber'-ries 

car'-rots an-i-mal al-read -y au-tumn 

peo'-pled an-oth'-er hi -ber-nat-ing cab'-bage 

THE BROWN BEAR. — 1. 

1. In this lesson and some others that fol- 
low, you are going; to read about animals in 
countries more like our own than those round 
the North Pole. These countries are unlike 
one another in many ways : but they are all 
alike in having spring, summer, autumn, and 
winter as we have. 

2. Of the animals that live in such coun- 
tries, there are many that you will like to 



THE BROWX BEAR. 



41 



hear about. We will begin with the Brown 
Bear. 

3. There are many kinds of bears. You 



*i;'^' 




<SUi'fcS&' ■ ~ 



have already been told about one that lives 
chiefly on the ice. That one is wholly car- 
nivorous ; but it is the only one of all the 



42 THE BROWX BEAR. 

bears that is so. The other bears are omniv- 
orous, which means that they live on all kinds 
of food, both on the flesh of animals and on 
what comes from plants. 

4. Man is an omnivorous animal, for he, 
too, feeds on both animal and plant food. 
His beef and mutton, his fowl and fish, make 
up the chief part of his animal food. His 
plant food is made up not only of such things 
as cabbages, pease, carrots, and turnips, but 
still more of bread and fruits, rice, sago, and 
so forth. All these things come from plants, 
or are made from things got from plants. 

5. The brown bear is not very often seen 
in countries that are thickly peopled. Like 
other large wild animals, it has been driven 
away from lands that are covered with farms 
and cities. 

6. In appearance, the brown bear is very 
like the polar bear, except in its color. It 
has a similar shape, similar claws, and similar 
teeth. Though not quite so large as the polar 
bear, it is often more than seven feet in length. 



THE BROWN BEAR. 43 

7. If you saw it, you might think it a very 
terrible animal, both to men and to other 
animals. Yet it is, as a rule, harmless 
enough. It will not attack a man unless 
it be provoked, and it does not even kill 
weaker animals for food. 

8. It prefers to live on roots and berries 
and other things belonging to plants. Honey 
and other sweet things it is very fond of. 
It is mostly on the approach of winter, when 
it is pressed by hunger, and cannot get enough 
of the plant-food it likes best, that it attacks 
animals for their flesh. 

9. But when the winter has come, the 
bear falls into a long sleep. It is one of 
the hibernating animals ; and both the male 
and the female hibernate, not merely the 
female, as is the case with the polar bear. 
Before this winter-sleep takes place, it grows 
very fat ; and when fat enough and no longer 
caring to eat, it goes and lies down in its den 
between rocks or among the roots of trees. 



44 



THE BROWN" BEAR. 





LES 


SON XII. 




droll 


hun'-gry 


fright'-en-ed 


gam'-bols 


en-joy" 


qui'-et-ly 


mis-be-have' 


moth'-er 


for'-est 


clinib'-er 


a-mus'-ing 


per-form' 


ter'-ror 


sleep'-i-ly 


dis'-tance 


shag'-gy 



wom-an awk-ward straw'-ber-ries e-nough' 
THE BROWN BEAR. — 2. 

1. Though very strong, the bear is for the 
most part a gentle animal, unless when old or 
hungry. Even a wild bear has been known 

to play with 
children like a 
big dog. 

2. A story is 
told of a woman 
in Russia, where 
bears are not 
uncommon, los- 
ing two young 
children, and being much frightened at find- 
ing them playing with a bear and the bear 
with them. 

3. One of the children was feeding the 




THE BROWN BEAR, 45 

great shaggy beast with strawberries, which 
it seemed greatly to enjoy ; the other was 
riding on its back, quite happy, and never 
thinking that the horse it had mounted could 
do it any harm. Nor did it do so; for in 
its gambols it behaved as gently as a large, 
good-natured dog would have done. 

4. When the bear saw the mother coming 
near in terror, it turned and walked quietly 
away into the forest. 

5. Clumsy as it looks, the bear is not so 
awkward in its movements as we misfit 
fancy. It is a good runner, a good climber, 
and a good swimmer. When caught young, 
it can be trained very easily to dance and to 
perform amusing tricks ; and when kindly 
treated, it becomes very fond of its master. 

6. Even when left to themselves young 
bears, or bear cubs as they are called, are 
very amusing. In some places they are kept 
in large pits, and people often come to watch 
their droll ways, as the plump little animals 
play with one another, and enjoy themselves 
in their own way. 



46 THE BROWN BEAR. 

7. The mother will sleepily watch them 
meanwhile, but will sometimes rouse herself 
to give a smart cuff with her paw to any of 
her children that misbehave. 

8. During their sports, one will often see 
the young bears rise on their hind-feet, and 
use their fore-legs as if they were arms. 
Their hind-feet have flat soles like the feet 
of men, and hence bears can stand upright 
almost as firm as a man can. 

9. When full-grown, bears will often get 
up and stand or run for a short distance in 
the same way. When set upon by hunters, 
a bear will often turn upon them ; and then 
it always gets up on its hind-legs, to make 
a rush at the man standing nearest. 

10. It will then try to fell him with a 
single blow from one of his strong fore- 
paws ; and if it fails to do this, it will seize 
him round the body with both its paws, and 
hug or squeeze him to death. It is in this 
manner, too, that the bear kills animals for 
food. 



THE BISON. 



47 



LESSON XIII. 



i-de'-a plen-ti-ful 

broad shoul-ders 

bi'-sons buf-fa-loes 

trav-el cloth'-ing 



al-though' 
re-quir -ed 
Eu-rope 



s.iag-gy 
red'-C'Hsh 
ap-peff :rs / 



else'-where re'-al-l^ 
is'-lands A-mer-i-ca nu-mer-ous prai'-ries 

THE BISON. — 1. 

1. The animal called by this name is like 
a very large ox or cow ; but if you look at 
a picture of it. you will see at a glance one 
thing by which you may always know it 
from an ox. It is very high and broad at 
the shoulders ; and it appears to be even 
higher there than it really is, because it 
has so much long shaggy hair in that part. 

2. The back slopes down from this hump 
to the tail, and there is another slope still 
st( v per from the hump to the head, which 
is much lower than the shoulders. 

3. The bison has horns like a bull ; but 
the horns are always short and curved, and 
placed very far apart, and at the sides of the 
head. 



48 



THE BISON. 



4. It was in our own country that bisons 
were most plentiful. They are often called 
buffaloes, although that name is given else- 
where to animals of another kind. 

5. They lived in herds, made up of count- 




less numbers of animals. Nothing now can 
give us any idea of the size of the vast herds 
which used to roam over the plains. The 
bison is now greatly reduced in numbers, and 
before long will be extinct. 



THE BISON. 49 

6. Like the cow, they feed on grass and 
herbs ; and in the western plateau of North 
America there are vast plains called prairies, 
covered with grass, on which you can travel 
for thousands of miles and see little but grass 
on all sides. There are no fields, no hedges, 
no trees except here and there by the sides 
of rivers, and in many parts no hills or 
mountains. 

7. It is these grassy plains that were the 
home of the bison, and until recently no 
other large animal in the world was found 
in such countless herds. But when the herds 
were larger the only human beings on these 
plains were Indians, who lived by hunting 
the bison. 

8. These Indians are people who have a 
brownish or reddish skin, and sleep in rude 
tents. From the bison they used to obtain 
almost all that they required, just as the 
Lapps do from the reindeer. 

9. At that time the bisons were far more 
numerous than the people in North America. 



50 THE BISON. 

It is in fact said, that only one vast herd 
roamed over all the thousands and thousands 
of miles in the prairies. 





LESSON XIV. 




guide 


quick'-ly 


ter-ri-fi-ed 


tal-low 


scour 


trod'-den 


head'-long 


use'-ful 


pis'-tol 


won-der 


crowd'-ing 


stu'-pid 


pan'-ic 


stum'-ble 


un-spar'-ing 


mon-ey 



THE BISON.— 2. 

1. At the end of the last lesson you were 
told about the great numbers of bisons that 
once lived in North America. It is different 
now that people from other countries, in Eu- 
rope, came over to America, and made fields 
to grow corn and fruit in many parts of the 
prairies, and laid railways across them. 

2. The people of Europe have also brought 
with them horses and guns, which, before 
they came, were not known in America. 
Since they came, therefore, the bisons have 
been killed in much greater numbers. The 



THE BISON. 51 

vast herd has been broken up into smaller 
ones ; and in no long time the bison will be 
quite destroyed. 

3. You may wonder why the bisons are 
killed in that unsparing manner. The rea- 
son is, that so many parts of the animal are 
useful to man. By selling the hides, the 
horns, the hoofs, the flesh, and the tallow, 
a hunter can make much money, and there- 
fore he always kills as many as he can. 

4. The hunting of the bison is very easy. 
Large as the animal is, it is very timid and 
also very stupid. When it catches sight of 
a hunter it at once takes to flight. Very 
often a whole herd will take fright at some 
simple thing, and clash off in a panic. 

5. Crowding together, they scour away 
over the plains so swiftly, that no horse 
can keep up with them for very long. 

G. Sometimes the hunter, mounted on a 

good horse, will dash into the very thick of 

such a terrified herd, and kill the animals 

with his gun or pistol right ami left. He 



52 



THE BISON. 



knows that there is no danger of the bison 
itself setting upon him. 

7. Yet he knows, too, that when he chases 
them in this way he takes his life in his 
hands; for he cannot see where he is going, 




he cannot guide his horse, and at any time 
his horse may stumble in a hole and get 
overthrown. When that happens, the hunter 
is apt to get trodden to death by the bisons 
galloping over him in their headlong flight. 



THE BISOK. 53 



LESSON XV. 

jaws straight stom'-ach ought 

chew mere'-ly di-gest'-ed out'-er 

hoofs di-vid-ed care'-ful-ly ly'-ing 

mode swal-lows be-gin'-ning pel'-let 

THE BISON. — 3. 

1. At the beginning of the first lesson 
on the bison, you were told that this ani- 
mal is like the ox or cow. The likeness 
spoken of there, was only the likeness of 
the outer form of the two animals. 

2. But you ought to know also that these 
animals, and many others besides, are like 
one another in their mode of feeding. 

3. When a cow grazes, or walks about in 
the fields eating the grass, it does not chew 
the grass, but swallows it at once into a 
stomach, where it is only stored up for a 
time, to be used again. 

4. But grass, like all food, must be di- 
gested ; which means, that it must be 
changed in such a way that it can form 



54 THE BISON. 

part of the flesh of the animal. This change 
takes place chiefly in the stomach ; and in 
most animals, as in man. there is only one 
stomach. 

5. The cow and the bison, however, have 
more than one stomach ; and so too have most 
other animals which have the feet divided 
into two hoofs. All these animals pass their 
food first of all, without chewing, into a 
stomach, in which it is merely stored up. 

G. Now. if you watch a cow lying down 
in a field, you may see how it uses this store 
of food afterwards. You may see it working 
its laws carefully from side to side, chewing 

J Xy O 

and chewing for a long time without biting 
the grass, and without taking up any food by 
means of its mouth. 

7. But if you watch closely, you will see 
where this food comes from. You will see 
the cow from time to time raise its head, and 
make the front of its neck stiff and straight, 
and then too. you can see a swelling passing 
up the front of the neck towards the mouth. 



THE BISON. 55 

8. This swelling is caused by a pellet or 
little ball of grass passing up from the store 
already formed into the mouth. It is this 
pellet that is chewed so carefully. There is 
a name for such a pellet of food drawn up 
from the cow's stomach. It is called a cud, 
and animals that feed in this way are said to 
chew the cud. 

9. When the chewing is done, the food is 
swallowed into another stomach, where it is 
digested. The cow and the bison have four 
stomachs. In two of these the food lies 
before it passes back to the mouth, and into 
the two others it passes after the chewing of 
the cud. 



56 THE BEAVER. 





LESSON 


XVI. 




scales 


A-mer'-i-ca 


plen'-ti-ful 


chis'-els 


group 


gnaw'-ing 


prai'-ries 


for'-ests 


bea-ver 


pop'-lars 


cloth'-ed 


rab'-bit 


far'-ther 


ro-dents 


birch'-es 


edg'-es 


wil'-lows 


cu'-ri-ous 


gnaw-ers 


liF-ies 




THE BEAVER. — 1. 





1. The Beaver, like the bison, is chiefly 
found in North America. Look on the globe 
for the northwest of America. That part is 
one in which there is a great number of 
lakes, or sheets of water, and a great num- 
ber of rivers, both large and small. There, 
too, are vast forests. It is in that part that 
the beaver is most plentiful. The prairies 
with the bison lie farther south. 

2. The beaver is one of a large group of 
animals which are all very like one another 
in the shape of their teeth. To this group 
the rabbit and the mouse also belong ; and if 
you get the chance of looking at a mouse's 
head, you may see what the teeth are like. 



THE BEAVER. 57 

3. In the front of the mouth you will 
see only four teeth, two in the upper jaw 
and two in the lower, and these teeth have 
all sharp cutting edges like chisels. Behind 
these teeth, there is a wide gap in the mouth 
without any teeth ; and then come a number 
of other teeth set close together, and all flat 
at the top. 

4. These back teeth are used to grind the 
food, but the sharp front teeth are used in 
gnawing ; and hence the animals making up 
this group are called rodents, which means 
gnawers. 

5. The beaver is one of the largest of the 
rodents, and is much larger than a rabbit. 
It is about two feet in length, and has a 
broad, flat tail about one foot long. The 
body is clothed with a fine brown fur, which 
is highly prized ; but the tail is naked, or, 
rather, covered with scales instead of hair. 

6. Of all the rodents the beaver is the 
most wonderful. It is by far the most 
knowing ; and its ways of life, where beavers 



58 



THE BEAVER. 



are numerous, are very curious. It lives 
mainly, but not wholly, in the water, and 
always has its home beside streams or lakes. 






• V 



r>: Ss 



1 




7. Its food is made up of the roots of 
water-lilies, and other plants that grow in 
the water, and the bark and young wood 



THE BEAVER. 59 

of trees, such as birches, willows, and pop- 
lars, which grow by the sides of lakes and 
rivers. 

8. Where there are not many beavers, 
their home is merely a hole made by bur- 
rowing in the earth, by the side of some 
stream or lake. The entrance is a tunnel 
opening under water, and there is always a 
small opening above to admit air 

9. The chamber to which the tunnel leads 
is hollowed out above the highest level that 
the water ever reaches ; for if it were not, the 
water would rise into it and drown the bea- 
vers. The inside of the chamber is lined with 
withered leaves and other things to keep it 
warm. 



60 



THE BEAVER. 



LESSON XVII. 



bowl 
built 
twines 
rap'-id 



plen'-ti-ful 

won'-der-ful 

plas'-ter-ed 

nar-row-er 



cham'-ber 
sev'-er-al 
erf-trance 
reg'-u-lar 



skir-ful 
gnaws 
trow'-el 
straight 



soF-id car-niv'-o-rous com-posed' eighteen 

THE BEAVER. — 2. 

1. Where beavers are very plentiful, their 
homes are quite different from those you 
read of in the last lesson. The dwellings 
they make for themselves are as wonder- 
ful as those which any other animals are 
known to make. 

2. The beaver lodges, as they are called, 
are round ; they are built in the water, and 
rise several feet above the surface. The part 
above the water is shaped somewhat like a 
haycock, or a bowl turned upside down. 

3. The things which the beaver makes use 
of in building these lodges, are the branches 
of trees, stones, mud, and mosses. The 
branches it gnaws off with its strong gnaw- 



THE BEAVER. 61 

ing teeth ; and in laying them it twines the 
twigs of different branches together, so as to 
keep each other firm, and the branches laid 
under water are kept down by stones placed 
on the top of them. The mosses and mud 
are used to fill up the spaces. 

4. All the outside of the lodge above the 
water is carefully plastered over with mud, 
and in laying on this covering it is very 
likely that the beaver makes use of its scaly 
tail as a trowel. The walls of these lodges 
are at least three or four feet thick, and 
are hence very strong. 

5. The lodges are, indeed, regular forts, 
into which the carnivorous animals that 
make the beavers their prey cannot break 
their way. In winter, when the walls are 
made solid by the frost, they are even 
stronger than in summer. 

6. Inside the walls of the loda;e is a 
chamber about seven feet across and three 
feet high. In each chamber may live live 
or six beavers. Their beds, composed of dry 



62 THE BEAVER. 

leaves and grass, are ranged round the walls. 
In such lodges the beavers also keep stores of 
food for the winter. 

7. The entrance to the lodges is always 
below the surface of the water, and in streams 
that become very low in summer, the beaver 
has a skilful way of keeping the water always 
high enough. It builds dams across the 
stream from bank to bank. 

8. Sometimes such dams are three hun- 
dred feet in length. Since they must be 
made very strong to stand the force of the 
water, they are very thick. At the bottom 
their thickness is ten or twelve feet ; but they 
get narrower towards the top, where their 
thickness is only about two feet. 

9. The logs used in building them are 
sometimes eighteen inches or even two feet 
thick ; but however large the logs are, a 
countless number of them must be used in 
building such large dams. 

10. Where the flow of a river is gentle, 
the dams are built straight across ; but where 



THE GULL. 



63 



it is more rapid, they are curved up the 
stream so as to stand the force of the water. 
In a like manner, a builder places the bricks 
over a doorway or window in the form of an 
arch, to bear up the wall put on it. 



LESSON XVIII. 



oil-y 


no'-ticed 


sur -face 


pounce 


differ 


u-nit'-ed 


feath'-ers 


hab'-its 


grubs 


chick'-ens 


bis'-cuit 


pig -eon 


known 


swoop -ing 


sud'-den 


suck-le 


plough 


keen'-eyed 


cov-er-ing 


pad-dies 



THE GULL. 

1. This is the first bird that you have 
read about ; and before you are told any- 
thing about the gull itself, it will be well 
for you to know something of how all 
birds differ from the mammals, of which 
you have been reading. 

2. You hardly need to be told that birds 
do not suckle their young. They lay eggs ; 
and when the young birds come out of the 



64 THE GULL. 

eggs, they are sometimes able to pick up 
their own food at once, as chickens can. 

3. Birds have no hair, but they have 
feathers to cover them ; and this covering 
serves to keep them warm, just as the hair 
or fur of mammals does. 

4. The common sea-gull is a white sea- 
bird, larger than a pigeon, and is known to 
most boys and girls who live by the seaside, 
or near the mouths of rivers. 

5. By watching it from the shore or from 
the deck of a steamer, they can learn some- 
thing of its habits. They can see how keen- 
eyed it is. They may have noticed it 
swooping down with a sudden dart, to pick 
up a bit of bread or biscuit, which it will 
not fail to see, even amidst the foam of a 
steamer's wake. 

G. Just so they may see it pounce down 
again and again to the surface of the water, 
trying to catch small fishes. But often it 
may be seen to fly back again without any- 
thing in its mouth ; for, though keen-eyed 



THE GULL. 65 

and quick on the wing, it is not a good 
diver, and the fish after which it darts can 
easily escape by sinking in the water. 

7. Indeed, if living fishes formed the chief 
food of the gull, that bird would not thrive 
very well. The gull, however, lives chiefly 
on what it picks up on the seashore, or finds 
floating on the waves. Often it may even be 
seen a good way inland, following the plough, 
ready to pick up worms and grubs when they 
are turned up with the earth. 

8. Yet it is a true sea-bird ; and there are 
two things that you ought to take note of, 
as fitting it for a sea life. Like all water- 
birds, it has its feathers covered with an 
oily coating, which keeps them from get- 
ting wet. 

9. If you have ever seen a duck swim- 
ming in a pond, you may have noticed 
that when it dives, and rises with water 
on its wings, the water does not wet the 
feathers, but lies in round drops, which 
easily roll oft* when the wings are shaken. 



66 



SWALLOWS. 



10. The other thing that you should take 
note of, is the shape of the feet. The toes in 
front are united by a web, in such a way that 
the feet can act as paddles. By means of 
these the gull can swim when it likes. 





LESSON XIX. 




eaves 


sel-dom 


dis'-tant 


au'-tumn 


tough 


pas'-sage 


swal-low 


cer'-tain 


hab'-its 


chim'-ney 


un-used' 


fork'-ed 


rap-id 


in '-mates 


quit'- ted 


close'-ly 


a-lights' 


mi'-gra-tory 


sher-ter-ed 


re-pairs' 




SWALLOWS. 





1. The Swallows are the best known of 
all the birds of passage or migratory birds, 
which means, birds that visit us only at cer- 
tain seasons, and spend the rest of the year 
in distant countries. 

2. Almost every boy and girl can tell a 
swallow by its flight. We may not be able 
to see it very often close at hand, for it 
seldom alights on the ground, or rests any- 



SWALLOWS. 67 

where long enough for us to look at it 
closely ; but we can tell it by the shape 
of its wings, and by its way of darting 
about in the air, now high; now low, with 
many rapid turns. 

3. The common or chimney swallow is 
also known at once, by its long forked tail, 
the outer feathers of which are more than 
half as long as the whole body. 

4. But besides this common swallow, there 
are other birds which are often called by the 
same name, and which have the same habits. 

5. Of these, the birds called swifts are most 
unlike the common swallow, and are easily 
known by their color and the shape of their 
wings. While the swallows are black and 
white, and have wings that are not very 
long, the swifts are almost all black, and 
have wings both long and narrow. 

6. The swallow's nest is as well known 
as the bird itself. It is built of small round 
lumps of day. held together by straw and 
tough, dry grass. Inside it is warmly lined 



68 SWALLOWS. 

with feathers. The nest is always built in 
some place sheltered from wind and rain; 
sometimes in an unused chimney, sometimes 
under the eaves of a house, or in the upper 
corner of a window. 

7. . To this nest the swallow returns year 
by year, after its wonderful migration. It 
is absent from the Northern States during 
all the winter months, and during that time 
it lives in countries many hundreds of miles 
away. 

8. Yet in the spring-time it finds its way 
back to the same part of the country which 
it had left in autumn ; and when it has once 
built a nest, it does not build a new one, but 
merely repairs the very nest which it quitted. 

9. A swallow may thus get well known to 
the inmates of a house where it has built its 
nest. One has been known to come for about 
ten years to a nest in the porch of the same 
house ; and while it paid no heed to the pass- 
ing out and in of the people belonging to the 
house, it would utter a cry of warning when 
any stranger entered. 



BATS. 69 

10. This habit of migrating shows a won- 
derful instinct, and you may well ask the rea- 
son of it. One reason no doubt is, that the 
bird cannot stand the winter cold ; but there 
is another reason besides. The swallow feeds 
on flying insects, which in the north of our 
country are very scarce in winter, so that the 
bird flies away to a warmer climate, where 
they are to be found. In a later lesson you 
will learn where such countries are; coun- 
tries that have a summer all the year round. 



LESSON XX. 

in-sects chir-dren gath -er-ed flut'-ter 

bod-ies cu'-ri-ous weatk-er cloth-ed 

hid'-den to-geth'-er stretch-ed coun '-tries 

sel'-dom as-sem-ble ap-proach' jerk'-y 

BATS. 

1. Children who live in the country 
know these curious animals very well. They 
can see them flying about at dusk, and though 
it may be too dark to see what the bats are 



70 



BATS. 



like, yet they can easily tell them from birds, 



4m 



kV r[< * v 




by their manner of flying, which is always 
very jerky. Their wings flutter more than 



BATS. 71 

those of birds do. and the bats are seldom 
seen to alight. 

2. They are very curious animals indeed. 
They are flying mammals, and they are the 
only mammals that do fly. If you could 
catch one. you would see that they have 
their bodies clothed, not with feathers like 
birds, but with hair like other land mam- 
mals. Their wings, too. are very unlike 
those of birds. They are nothing but a 
very thin skin, which can be stretched out, 
by means of long, thin bones like very long 
lingers. 

3. It is only by night or in the dusk 
that these strange mammals fly about. In 
our part of the world, their food consists of 
insects, which they catch flying as swallows 
do. By day they sleep in holes in trees or in 
other places where they can remain hidden. 

4. Bats, like swallows, are not to be seen 
in winter. Well, you know that bats feed 
on the same kind of food as these birds do, 
and you may perhaps think that the bats 



t a 



2 BATS. 



also fly away in winter, to countries where 
there is summer all the year round. But 
no, that is not what bats do. They are able 
to pass the winter in a very strange manner. 

5. During that season they sleep, and thus 
are able to do without food till the warmer 
weather returns. 

6. On the approach of winter, they assem- 
ble in great numbers in some cave or cleft in 
the rocks, in large hollow trees, in barns, in 
sheds or old buildings ; and they all hang by 
the claws of their hind feet, close together, 
head downwards. 

7. Like the bear and other animals that 
pass the winter in this way, the bats are 
warm and fat when their winter sleep be- 
gins, but cold and lean when it ends. 

8. In our part of the world the bats are 
all small; but in those warm countries, of 
which you have heard, with summer all the 
year round, there are very large bats which 
live on fruits, and do not have a long sleep. 

9. They are hence called fruit bats. Some 



THE SILKWORM. 



'3 



of them are so large, that their wings, when 
spread out. are nearly five feet from tip to 
tip. 

10. Like our own bats, they fly about by 
night, and by day they hang head down- 
wards from the branches of trees or the 
roofs of caves. 





LESSON XXI. 




bursts 


dif-fer-ent 


creat'-ure 


emp'-ty 


jel'-ly 


bus'-i-ness 


mur-ber-ry 


re'-al-ly 


thread 


sev'-er-al 


cab'-bage 


in'-sect 


cir'-cle 


wing'-ed 


squeez'-ed 


dur'-ing 


moths 


sup-plies' 


n active s 


use'-ful 


strands 


pur'-pose 


cat'-er-pil-lar 


co-coon 



THE SILKWORM. 

1. Though called a worm, this creature is 
really an insect, and in one state it has legs 
and wings like a butterfly. But a great 
number of insects are quite different at one 
time of their life from what they are at 
another. 

2. When they are first hatched from the 



THE SILKWORM. 



egg, they are creeping, worm-like creatures, 
like caterpillars which you so often see on 
cabbage -leaves. Afterwards they become 
quite still for some days, and you would 
take them to be dead. 

8. But during that time, great changes 

are going on 
within their 
outer cover- 
ing ; and at 
last a winged 
insect like a 
butterfly 
bursts out, 
and leaves the 
case empty. 

4. The crea- 
ture that sup- 
plies us with the silk of which dresses are 
made is called a worm, because it lives 
longest in the state in which it is like a 
worm, and also because it is then useful to 
man. 




THE SILKWORM. (D 

5. It remains a caterpillar for about eight 
weeks. At the end of that time, it begins to 
spin around itself a small ball of silk called a 
cocoon, and it goes on spinning for about five 
days. 

6. If you opened a silkworm while it was 
spinning its cocoon, you would not see any- 
thing!: like silk inside it. You would see two 
masses like jelly, and it is this that becomes 
changed into silk. 

7. In the mouth of the silkworm are 
two very small holes, by which the jelly 
is squeezed out ; and as it passes into the 
air. it hardens into a very fine thread. 

8. Though there are two holes, there is 
only one thread, because the two streams of 
jelly get joined into one as soon as they 
pass out. Yet with a glass which makes 
very small things look larger, you can see 
that there are really two strands, even in 
this very fine thread. 

9. To spin its cocoon out of this thread. 
the silkworm keeps slowly turning its head 



'6 



THE SILKWORM. 



in a circle. While this is going on, a slight 
noise may be heard ; and when the noise 
stops, those who watch the silkworms know 
that the cocoon is finished. 



Sca l £ 2. NA TURAL SIZE. 




10. If this cocoon were left to itself, the 
worm would in the end change into a moth 
inside, and the moth would eat its way 
through the silk. As soon, therefore, as 



THE SILKWORM. t t 

the noise stops, the cocoons are put into an 
oven to kill the worm. Only a few cocoons 
are left to be eaten through by the winged 
moths, in order that these may lay eggs, to 
bring forth new silkworms for the next year. 

11. So fine is the thread which the silk- 
worm spins, that three hundred yards or 
more are wound off from a single cocoon, 
and the threads of several cocoons must be 
spun together to make a thread fit for being 
used in weaving. 

12. Silkworms are natives of warmer 
countries than ours ; and where they are 
reared in colder countries than their own, 
stoves must sometimes be used, to give them 
the warmth which they need. 

13. In our country it is not easy to rear 
them, but in the south of Europe the rear- 
ing of silkworms is a great business. The 
best food for them is the leaves of a tree 
called the mulberry, which is grown for 
the purpose. 



8 


THE LOCUST. 






LESSON XXII. 




in'-ches 


ev'-en-ing ea'-ger-ly 


tend'-ed 


sin'-gle 


dread-ed chief-iy 


mass'-es 


plagues 


pun'-ish-ed trav-el-lers 


re-fus'-ed 


lo'-cust 


re-mem-ber men'-tion-ed 
THE LOCUST. 


ac-count' 



1. Like the silkworm, the Locust is an 
insect found in warm countries ; but, instead 
of being reared and carefully tended by man, 
for the sake of what is got from it, it is 
almost everywhere dreaded on account of 
what it destroys. 

2. It is a flying insect, and lives chiefly 
on green herbs. Though large for an in- 
sect, being about two and a half inches in 
length, a single locust cannot, of course, 
destroy much ; but these insects often ap- 
pear in countless hosts, and this it is that 
makes them so terrible. 

3. Being found in Palestine and the coun- 
tries round, they are often mentioned in the 
Bible. A visit of an army of locusts was one 



THE LOCUST. 79 

of the plagues with which the people of Egypt 
were punished when they refused to let the 
Israelites go. 

4. In the story of that plague, it is said 
the locusts " covered the face of the whole 
earth, so that the land was darkened ; and 
they did eat every herb of the land, and all 
the fruit of the trees which the hail had 
left ; and there remained not any green 
thing in the trees, or in the herbs of the 
field, through all the land of Egypt." 

5. Such visits of locusts are also told of by 
travellers in our own times. The swarms of 
locusts borne along by the wind filled the air ; 
they form thick masses, dark as a thunder- 
cloud. For more than an hour such an 
insect host has been seen to fly past, and 
the host may keep flying on as long as the 
sun shines ; but when the evening arrives, 
the insects always fold their wings and settle 
down. 

G. Then on all sides there is nothing seen 
but locusts. The plain is covered with them. 



80 THE LOCUST. 

Every green thing is hidden by their vast 
numbers. The sound of their jaws as they 
bite off the herbs can be heard at a great 
distance. 

7. Yet the locust is welcomed in some 
places. In deserts, where no crops are 
grown, and there are no pastures on which 
herbs can be reared, locusts sometimes sup- 
ply a food that is much enjoyed. 

8. In some parts smoky fires are made 
when locusts appear, that the locusts may 
be killed with the smoke. The dead locusts 
are eagerly eaten both by man and beast. 
Wherever honey can be got, it is eaten along 
with the locusts ; and this, you may remem- 
ber, was the food of John the Baptist in the 
wilderness. 



ANTS. 81 



LESSON XXIII. 



juice 


but'-ter-fly 


cap'-tur-ed 


ac'-tive 


chaff 


hol'-low-ed 


thresh'-ing 


bod-ies 


vis'-it 


wel-com-ed 


to-geth'-er 


warmth 


hab'-its 


won'-der-ful 


cham'-bers 


won'-der 



ANTS. 

1. If you visit the country, you may 
chance to see many active little brown in- 
sects, with bodies shaped like what is shown 
in the picture. These are ants, and they are 
in many ways the most wonderful of all 
insects. 

2. They live together in great numbers, 
and no other animals behave in many things 
so much like man as they do. There are 
many kinds of them, and they do not all 
have the same habits ; but you will wonder 
greatly when you are told of the habits of 
some of them. 

3. They live in nests, which, as a rule, are 
made in damp earth, the earth being partly 
hollowed out, partly raised up into a mound. 



82 



ANTS. 



Inside of the nest, are large numbers of 
chambers joined by tunnels. 

4. Within the chambers are kept the eggs 
of the ants, and the young insects before 
they are able to look after themselves. For 




young ants, like young children, are quite 
helpless, and must be fed and taken care of 
in every way. 

5. They are always kept clean. When 
the sun shines, they are carried from the 



ANTS. 8 



o 



inner part of the nest to the part near the 
top to enjoy the warmth. When it becomes 
cold, or when rain seems likely to fall, they 
are carried back again. 

6. When full-grown, most of the ants are 
not winged insects, like the silkworm, moth, 
or the butterfly. Only a few are winged, and 
even these do not keep their wings long. 
Those which never have wings are called 
workers, and do all the work in the nest, 
as well as in getting food. 

7. But the strangest things about the ant 
have still to be told. Did you ever hear of 
animals that kept cows of their own ? That 
is what some ants do. The cow of the ant 
is a smaller insect, which yields a sweet 
juice of which the ant is very fond. To 
get its cow to give out this juice, the ant 
strokes and pats it gently. 

8. Some ants even have fields of their 
own, like the fields in which men grow 
corn. They mark out plots round which 
they build walls of earth. In these they 



84 ANTS. 

do not sow seeds themselves, but the fields 
are made in places where there grows a 
kind of grass, on the seeds of which the 
ants feed ; and the ants do not allow any- 
thing to grow in their fields except this grass. 

9. All other plants they weed out, and 
throw over the walls, so that this grass 
may grow up in plenty. When it is ripe, 
they free the seed from the chaff, as men 
do in threshing corn, and the seed they 
store up for food. 

19. Some ants, again, keep slaves to do 
all the work for them, the slaves being 
ants of a weaker kind, which are captured 
in their nests. But it would take many 
lessons to tell all the wonderful things that 
are clone by ants, which are the most know- 
ing; of all insects. 



THE SALMON. 85 



LESSON XXIV. 

suck'-le cu'-ri-ous surface chief'-ly 

whor-ly spawn-ing cor-or-ed sal-mon 

im-pure' breathing sev'-er-al hatch-ed 

THE SALMON. — 1 

1. In some of the first lessons, you have 
read of several animals that live in the 
water, either wholly or chiefly ; but not one 
of these could rightly be called a fish. The 
Salmon, however, is a true fish. Let us 
see, then, how it differs from other ani- 
mals that live in the water, but which are 
not fish, such as whales. 

2. First, you remember what was said 
about the breathing of whales and other 
sea-mammals. You were told that they 
must come to the surface to breathe. But 
the salmon does not need to do this. 

3. Just like man, a whale or a seal or 
any other mammal has lungs within the 
chest ; and it is the lungs that fit them all 
for breathing air. All the blood, after being 



86 THE SALMON. 

made impure and dark-colored in passing 
through the body, comes to the lungs to 
be made pure and bright again by means 
of the air which is breathed in through the 
nose. 

4. The salmon, however, has no lungs, 
but breathes in the water by means of gills, 
as they are called. In any dead fish, you 
have only to open the slit at the side of 
the body just behind the head, in order to 
see these gills, which have the form of 
red bands. Now, in fishes, all the blood 
comes to be made pure in the gills, b}^ 
means of something in the water that passes 
over them. 

5. Then, again, a salmon does not suckle 
its young. It lays eggs as a hen does, and 
it leaves the eggs to be hatched by the 
heat of the sun. The eggs are not, how- 
ever, laid one by one as those of hens are. 
They are small, and are laid in very great 
numbers. The laying of the eggs is called 
spawning ; and as it is curious in many 



THE SALMON. 



ways, you will be told more about it in 
the next lesson. 



LESSON XXV. 



spawn 


sud'-den-ly 


hatch-ed 


straight 


rap-id 


qual'-i-ties 


sha]/-low 


es-cape' 


grilse 


up'-wards 


mi'-grates 


grav'-el 


ac'-tive 


creat'-ures 


in'-sects 


ang'-ler 


na'-tive 


mi-gra-tory 


suc-ceeds' 


con-sist 



THE SALMON. — 2. 

1. The salmon always spawns, or lays 
its eggs, in rivers. It does not always live 
in rivers. It is a migratory fish, as the swal- 
low is a migratory bird. It migrates from 
rivers to the sea, from fresh water to salt 
water, and then again from salt water to 
fresh. 

2. In order to spawn, the salmon comes 
from the sea to the rivers ; and it swims up 
the rivers till it comes to a spawning-bed 
that it likes. In doing so, it sometimes 
meets with waterfalls ; but these do not keep 
it back. 



88 THE SALMON. 

3. The salmon is one of the most active 
of all fishes, and has very great powers of 
leaping. When it comes to a waterfall, it 
bencls its body so that the head and tail 
come nearly together ; and then, by suddenly 
making itself straight again, it takes a great 
leap out of the water, trying to reach the top 
of the fall. If it does so, it swims quickly 
upwards in spite of the rapid rush of the 
water. It may fail ; but when it fails, it 
tries again and again till it succeeds. 
.4. At last it reaches the spawning-bed. 
This consists of a bed of fine gravel in a 
shallow part of the river, where it can be 
warmed by the rays of the sun. This is 
one reason why the salmon comes to the 
river to spawn. At the bottom of the sea, 
the eggs would not get heat enough from 
the sun to become hatched. 

5. The eggs are not merely laid on the 
spawning-bed ; but they are buried under 
the gravel, the fish making use of its tail 
to spread the gravel over the eggs. Many 



THE SALMON. 89 

of these eggs are eaten by other fishes and 
by insects ; but so great is their number, that 
many others escape and get safely hatched. 

6. When newly hatched, the salmon are 
tiny creatures only about half an inch in 
length. You can almost see through them. 
They are not even able to feed themselves ; 
but part of the yolk of the egg remains fixed 
to the under side of their bodies, and this 
gets used up as food. 

7. The young salmon stay sometimes for 
one year, and sometimes for two years, in 
the river in which they are hatched ; but in 
the end they swim clown to the sea. There 
they find plenty of food, and grow very 
quickly. A few months afterwards, they 
return to their native river, and they are 
now called grilse. They are not yet perfect 
salmon. 

8. But soon they return to the sea again, 
and grow larger still ; and then they gain all 
the qualities that make them so highly prized 
as food, and make them such sport for the 
angler. 



90 



THE KANGAROO. 



LESSON XXVI. 



is'-land 
length 
gal'-lop 
des'-ert 



clev'-er-ly 
creat'-ure 
cu'-ri-ous 
Aus-tra'-lia 



fore-paws 
fright-en 
hur'-ry-ing 
kan -ga-roo 



rea-son 
fif'-teen 
al-most 
con-tain' 



THE KANGAROO. 

1. Ox a map of the world, you will see to 

the southeast of Asia a large island called 

Australia. On 
a globe, this 
island will be 
found on the 
under side, be- 
cause it lies 
nearer the 
South than the 
North Pole. 
It is thus a long way off from us. The fast- 
est steamers that sail from this country can- 
not reach it in less than six weeks or more. 

2. This island is about as large as the 
country in which we live, and on account 
of its great size is sometimes regarded as a 




THE KANGAROO. 91 

continent ; yet it does not contain as many 
people as the State of Ohio, and the people 
that are on it live mostly in the parts near 
the sea. The reason of that is that almost 
all the inner parts are hot, sandy deserts, 
where rain seldom falls, and no crops can 
be grown. 

3. The animals found on this great island 
are very unlike those which are met with 
in any other part of the world. The stran- 
gest of all, perhaps, is the kangaroo. This 
animal is curious in many ways, but the 
most curious thing about it is the way in 
which it rears its young. 

4. It is very large. When it sits on its 
hind-legs and tail, as it is in the habit of 
doing, it is in many cases taller than the 
tallest man. Yet its young when new-born 
are only about an inch in length. 

5. These little creatures are quite help- 
less, and almost shapeless at first, and can- 
not move about. And the strange thing; 
about their bringing up, is what the mother 



92 



THE KANGAROO. 



does with them until they are large enough 
to feed on the grass, as she herself does. In 
front of her body, the mother has a pouch 




made by a fold of the skin ; and into this 
she puts her young when new-born, and 
feeds them with her own milk. 



THE KANGAROO. 93 

6. About eight months pass before the 
young kangaroo is able to leave the pouch, 
and for some time after that it will often 
spring back again very cleverly when any- 
thing takes place to frighten it. 

7. This animal is often hunted in Aus- 
tralia, both for the sake of its flesh and 
for the sport, for it can sometimes tire out 
the best horses. It does not run, and it 
does not gallop, but it takes long bounds. 

8. Using its two long hind-legs and its 
strong tail to jerk itself upwards and for- 
wards, it leaps about five yards at a time ; 
and it can go on taking such leaps for fifteen 
or twenty miles. A strong man at a run 
could take only one leap of the same length. 

9. In hurrying along in this way, the 
kangaroo never touches the ground with 
its short fore-paws. These paws, indeed, are 
hardly used as feet. They are used more 
as hands to pluck the long grasses on which 
the kangaroo often feeds, and to carry them 
to its mouth. 



94 



TROPICAL COUNTRIES. 



LESSON XXVII. 



broad 


tor'-rents 


im-mense' 


ex-cept' 


halves 


e-qua-tor 


monk-eys 


oool'-est 


trop'-ic 


weath'-er 


an'-i-mal 


for'-est 


height 


dif-fer-ent 


gam'-bol 


tan'-gled 


boughs 


chat'-ter-ing 


di-vid'-ed 


os'-trich 


les -son 


ever-last'-ing 


sur-rounds' 


per-haps' 



THE TROPICAL OR HOT COUNTRIES. 

1. In the first lesson, you read of the 
countries in the far north, where the win- 
ters are so long, so dark, and so cold. Now 
you are going to read about animals in coun- 
tries of a very different kind ; and before you 
read about the animals, you ought to know 
something of the countries in which they live. 

2. If you again look at a globe, you will 
find a broad belt which surrounds its wid- 
est part, lying between two dotted lines 
called the tropics. It is divided into halves 
by a line known as the equator. Within 
this belt lie the countries of which we are 
speaking, and which are called the Tropi- 
cal or Hot Countries. 



TROPICAL COUNTRIES. 95 

3. In these countries, there are no win- 
ters at all. Snow and ice are never to be 
seen, except on the tops of a few very high 
mountains ; and the people spend their wdiole 
lives in the midst of everlasting summer. 
Even in the coolest of these countries, the 
weather is very warm nearly all the year, 
and is never what we should think cold, 
except perhaps at night. 

4. For most of the year, the weather is 
also very dry and bright ; but when the rain 
does come, it pours down in such torrents, 
that some rivers rise as much as twenty feet 
in a single week. Moreover, the davs and 
nights are always of nearly equal length. 
The tropical countries are therefore very 
bright, sunny places. In truth, thev would 
be charming lands to dwell in, if they were 
not so very hot. 

5. Among the wonderful sights in these 
countries are the great forests, some of which 
are so large that they would much more 
than cover the whole of the State in which 



96 TROPICAL COUNTRIES. 

we live. Many of the trees in them are also 
of immense size, their height being twice that 
of the highest of our trees, or six or seven 
times that of a good house of two stories. 

6. Beneath these giant trees plants grow 
in countless numbers, and twine in clusters 
round the trunks and boughs. Indeed, the 
network of plants is so thick and tangled 
that the forests can be entered only by 
narrow paths, cut through them with great 
labor. 

7. The largest land animals in the world 
are found in the hot countries. Elephants 
force their way through the forests to feed 
under their deep shade ; monkeys gambol 
about among the boughs, chattering away 
at one another ; while beautiful birds, with 
gayer feathers than any we see near home, 
build many sorts of curious nests. 

8. Where trees are not so common the 
lion makes its den among the rocks, and 
countless herds of two-hoofed animals roam 
over wide, grassy plains. Along with these 



THE LION. 97 

latter may sometimes be seen the ostrich, 
that strange long-necked bird, which cannot 
fly, but which runs as fast as a railway 
train, and which lays its large eggs in 
holes in the sand. 



LESSON XXVIII. 



guess 


si'-lent-ly 


ca'-nines 


en'-e-my 


ed'-ges 


warn'-ing 


fear'-ful 


close'-ly 


sheath 


al-read'-y 


whisk'-er 


e-nough' 



pu'-pil car-niv'-o-rous vel'-vet-y mus'-cles 
THE LION. — 1. 

1. The Lion is a large cat. Boys and girls 
who have seen a wild-beast show may not 
think that the two animals are very like one 
another, but yet there are many things about 
them in which you can see that they are like 
when you look closely enough. 

2. Look at the teeth when the lion opens 
its mouth. There are rows of small teeth 
in the front of the mouth ; but at the sides 
in each jaw are two large sharp-pointed teeth, 



98 



THE LION. 



curved inwards, just like those which every 
one has seen in cats. These are the canines, 
which, as you have already learned, are al- 
ways found in carnivorous animals. 

3. They are teeth very well fitted for 
killing prey. If you could see the back 
teeth, too, you would see among them some 




large teeth with sharp blades, well fitted to 
cut flesh ; and the cat has teeth of the same 
kind. 

4. You may see a lion in a wild-beast 
show without seeing its claws. The paws 
of the lion are soft and velvety like those 
of the cat ; and the lion's claws, like the 



THE LIOX. 



99 




cat's, are mostly drawn back and hidden in 
sheaths. But you know what sharp claws 
a cat can put out when it pleases. 

5. The lion has 
claws of just the 
same kind, with 
sharp points and 
sharp edges, so 
that they can 
easily be buried 
in the soft flesh of any animal which it 
seizes. To each of these claws there is an 
elastic band, which holds back the claw when 

it is not in use ; 
but both the 
lion and the 
cat have strong 
m u s c 1 e s , by 
means of which 
they can pull 
forward the claws when needed. 

6. The eyes of the lion are also like those 
of the cat. Probably every boy and girl has 




100 THE LION. 

seen how much the black part in the mid- 
dle of the eye, the pupil as it is called, 
changes in size in the cat. When the light 
is strong, you see only a narrow slit ; but in 
the evening, when there is little light, you 
see the pupil wide open, and nearly round. 

7. It is through that change that the 
cat can see so well in the dark. It is that 
which makes pussy able to catch mice in 
the dark, when the mice leave their holes. 
Now, it is just the same with the lion. The 
lion, also, is an animal that seeks its prey 
by night ; and by means of its large pupils it 
can see when it is almost quite dark to most 
other animals. 

8. The lion has long whiskers on the 
sides of the lips, just as the cat has. You 
would hardly guess of what use these whisk- 
ers are. But you know, that if you touch one 
of these long hairs beside pussy's mouth, how- 
ever gently, she at once feels it. She shakes 
her head, and turns it away. Now, the whisk- 
ers often let pussy know, even when it is 
quite dark, if there is anything near. 



THE LI(W. 



101 



9. The lion, too, is warned in the same 
way ; and when he is stealing along as si- 
lently as he can, he turns aside as soon as 
he gets such a warning, lest he should brush 
against anything, and make a noise which 
would startle the animal on which he means 
to make a meal. 





LESSON 


f XXIX. 




rough 


chim'-ney 


fon'-dled 


chief -ly 


mane 


cov'-er-ed 


sup-pose' 


sup'-ple 


tongue 


knock'-ing 


li'-on-ess 


fe'-male 


col-or 


slight'-est 


cloth'-ed 


des'-ert 


taw'-ny 


or'-na-ment 


shoul'-ders 


dweir-er 




THE LION.— 2. 





1. We have not }'et got to the last of the 
points in which the lion is like the cat. A girl 
who has fondled a cat upon her knee will often 
have had her hands licked by her pet, and she 
will know how rough pussy's tongue is. 

2. The lion's tongue is rough too, and 



102 THE LION. 

indeed very much rougher than a cat's. 
The tongue of a lion is covered with hard, 
horny points, which are sharp enough to 
tear the skin on a man's hand when a 
lion licks it. 

3. In the shape of the body, the cat and 
the lion are not very like each other. The 
lion has a very large head and high shoul- 
ders ; and both the head and shoulders appear 
much larger than thev are. because they are 
clothed with long hair, forming what is called 
a mane. 

4. One can see more likeness between a 
cat and a female lion or lioness ; for she 
has no mane, and has not so large a head 
nor such high shoulders as the lion. Yet 
even the lion has a very supple body like 
that of the cat. 

5. The lion can twist and turn its body 
just as a cat can ; and as pussy can walk 
along the mantle-piece without knocking 
over one of the ornaments, or making the 
slightest noise, so can the lion twist and 



THE LION. 103 

wind among trees and bushes, and yet make 
no noise by striking against them. 

6. But you are not to suppose that the 
lion lives chiefly amongst trees and bushes. 
The lion is a dweller in the desert for the 
most part. As a rule, it has its den amidst 
rocks, in plains covered with sand or dry 
grass. On such ground its color helps to 
keep it hid : for the lion is always of a 
tawny color, not unlike the sand of the 
desert. 

7. This tawny color is just of as much 
use to the lion, in helping it to come near 
its prey without being seen, as the white 
color is of use to the polar bear on the ice 
and snow. 



104 



THE LION. 



LESSON XXX. 



stalk 


w arriving 


sel'-dom 


rap'-id 


hurls 


pur'-pose 


ut'-ters 


weigh 


scent 


light'-ning 


hun'-gry 


tim'-id 


prey 


ter'-ri-fied 


ter'-ror 


crunch 


seize 


care'-ful-ly 


a-fraid' 


chase 


crawl 


trav'-el-ling 


stealth'-y 


hoof-ed 




the : 


LION. —3. 





1. The lion always draws near its prey 
as a cat does, in a very stealthy manner. 
Though a rapid runner, it does not run so 
quickly as the animals that mostly form 
its prey. These are almost all hoofed ani- 
mals, which are very fleet of foot. 

2. Sometimes the lion will lie long on 
one spot without moving, watching for some 
passing animal, as a cat watches at the hole 
of a mouse. 

3. But very often it has to stalk its prey. 
That means that it tries, without being found 
out, to get so near an animal that it can dart 
upon it with a single great bound. In doing 



THE LION. 105 

so, it crawls along carefully on its belly, and 
shows great skill in hiding itself behind every 
bush, and every swelling in the ground, which 
can serve its purpose. 

4. It always goes forward in such a way 
that the wind blows towards it from the ani- 
mals it is watching; ; for otherwise its scent 
might be blown towards them, and give them 
warning of its coming. 

5. At last, when near enough, it makes 
its spring. It hurls itself in one great leap 
against the animal which it has singled out ; 
and unless the prey is very large, it is at 
once overthrown by the shock. For the lion 
is large enough to weigh nearly as much 
as three men ; and hardly any animal is 
able to bear up against the shock of such 
a mass, hurled against its side. 

G. If the prey is not at once thrown 
down, the lion tears it down with his sharp 
claws, and kills it with a blow of his paw. 
The paw is strong enough to break the back 

J. o 

of a horse with a single Mow. and the lion's 



106 



THE LION. 



jaws and teeth are strong enough to crunch 
the bones in the neck of a cow. 

7. Often the lion will manage to secure 
a meal by uttering the awful roar for which 




it is famous, and which strikes terror into 

the breast of nearly every beast of the plains. 

8. Like all beasts of prey, the lion is much 

afraid of fire ; and parties of men, when trav- 



THE ELEPHANT. 



107 



elling over the plains where lions abound, 
often try to save themselves and their cat- 
tle at night from lions, by making a ring 
of fire round their little camp. The lion 
dares not cross this ring of fire, but it utters 
its roar. Then the timid animals, struck 
with fear, and not knowing that they are 
safe where they are, rush out of the ring 
into the very danger which they dread. 



LESSON XXXI. 



straight 


el'-e-phant 


chir-dren 


ea'-si-ly 


bis'-cuit 


mam'-mal 


an'-i-mal 


height 


al'-most 


scarce'-ly 


col'-umns 


propter 


throat 


drag'-ging 


cu'-ri-ous 


four'-teen 


gi-raffe / 


her-biv'-o-rous 


im-mense' 


pictures 



THE ELEPHANT. — 1. 

1. The Elephant is the largest of all 
mammals that live on land. There are two 
kinds of elephants, one living in Africa, 
and the other in Asia. The first is the 
larger of the two, and sometimes reaches a 



108 



THE ELEPHANT. 



Height of fourteen feet or even more, which 
means that it is more than twice the height 
of the very tallest men. 

2. But it is not only great in height, it 
is big every way. Hardly any children need 




to be told what the animal is like. Pictures 
of it they have often seen ; and if they live in 
a large town, they may have seen the animal 
itself walking the streets, and dragging a 
large car behind, when a circus enters the 
town. 



THE ELEPHANT. 109 

3. In that way they have got to know 
its large, thick body, its straight legs like 
columns, its round feet with no proper toes, 
but with five small hoofs where the toes 
should be, its large, round head, its im- 
mense ears, its tusks, and above all its 
trunk. 

4. This last part of the animal is well 
worth looking at. No other animal has 
anything like it. It is the elephant's hand 
and arm. It is that by which alone it gets 
its food and its drink. 

5. The elephant is wholly herbivorous. 
It lives on the leaves of trees, or young 
twigs, and even on the bark and wood of 
small branches. Such food is mostly found 
hisjli above its head. Grass and other herbs 
which grow on the ground are also eaten 
by it, but even that food it could not reach 
without its trunk. 

6. For look where its head is. There is 
scarcely any neck, because a head so large 
could not be carried at the end of a long 



110 THE ELEPHANT. 

neck. If you look at the picture facing the 
title-page, you will see near the elephant 
the figure of another animal that lives on 
the leaves growing on trees high above the 
ground. 

7. That animal is the giraffe, and you 
will see in the plate how it is able to 
reach these leaves by means of its long 
neck and long tongue. But that animal 
has a very small head, easily carried. The 
elephant is different. It cannot raise or 
lower its mouth to find its food ; but the 
trunk takes the place of the long neck of 
the giraffe, and has many uses besides. 

8. The elephant can turn and twist its 
trunk in any way it pleases. It can wind 
it round young trees, and root them up. It 
can reach up to high branches, and tear them 
down. It can pluck up grasses and herbs 
from the ground, and lift them to its mouth. 

9. When it wants to drink, it sucks water 
into its trunk, which is hollow, and then it 
pours this water down its throat. It can 



THE ELEPHANT. Ill 

even, by means of its trunk, pick up very 
small objects from the ground. For the 
end of the trunk can be opened and closed 
like a mouth. 

10. The trunk has lips, so to speak ; and 
those who have fed elephants with biscuits 
know how it makes use of these lips to 
hold small things given to it. But more 
than that, there is in the middle of the 
upper lip of the trunk something like a 
soft finger, which is always sticky, and by 
means of that finger the elephant can pick 
up almost anything that we could pick up 
between the finger and thumb. 



112 



THE ELEPHANT. 



LESSON XXXII, 



for'-est 


trop'-i-cal 


al-though' 


gen'-tle 


thirst 


bath'-ing 


cli'-mate 


at-tack' 


thongs 


fu'-ri-ous 


marsh'-y 


in'-sects 


roams 


strug'-gle 


con-sole' 


nat'-ure 


use'-ful 


be-long'-ing 


ser'-vant 


bel'-low 



en'-e-my tor-ment'-ed u'-su-al-ly cap'-tive 

THE ELEPHANT. —2. 

1. Although it can stand a climate as 
cold as our own, the elephant lives chiefly 
in tropical countries, or countries near the 
tropics. It roams about in herds in the 
forests, and is mostly found in marshy 
tracts, or at least in places where it can 
get plenty of water. For it is fond of 
bathing and washing its body with the 
water which it takes up into its trunk. 

2. It even has the means of storing up 
water in its body ; and when there is no 
other water near, it will put the end of its 
trunk in its mouth, and fill it with the water 
thus stored up. and then pour it over itself. 

3. This it does to get rid of insects ; and 



THE ELEPHANT. 113 

in their own country elephants nearly always 
have certain birds on their backs which help 
to rid them of the many insects by which 
they are tormented. 

4. Like most other herbivorous animals, 
the elephant is of a gentle nature, and never 
uses its strength to attack any other animal. 
On the other hand, it is too strong to be 
in danger of being itself set upon, even by 
the lion or the tiger. Its only enemy, in 
fact, is man ; but the elephant is of too 
great use to man in many ways to be let 
alone by him. 

5. In the first place, the elephant, being 
easily trained, can be made a very useful 
servant to man ; and it is for this reason 
that the elephant belonging to Asia is usu- 
ally caught. This elephant is mostly caught 
alive. 

6. Men skilled in the work go out into the 
forest where elephants abound, taking with 
them tame elephants, which know very well 
what their masters intend, and know too how 



114 



THE ELEPHANT. 



to help them. The tame elephants go near 
the wild ones, and try to keep them from 
seeing what the men are doing. 

7. The men thus manage to fasten ropes 
or thongs round their legs, and tie them to 
trees. The animals on finding themselves 




caught become furious. They pull with all 
their might, they throw themselves on the 
ground, and twist and turn about in all 
ways, they bellow with rage, they tear up 
the ground with their tusks. 

8. The struggle may last for several days. 



THE ELEPHANT. 115 

But all in vain. The ropes and the trees 
hold firm. At the end of a few days, when 
the animal is worn out with its struggles, 
as Avell as by hunger and thirst, the men 
return with the tame elephants which con- 
sole the captives, and afterwards help in 
training them to their duties. Such tame 
elephants are taught to do all that horses 
can do, both in peace and Avar. 

9. The African elephant is never caught 
in this way ; but it is killed in great num- 
bers for the sake of its tusks, from which 
Ave get iA^ory. 



116 RHINOCEROS AXD HIPPOPOTAMUS. 



LESSON XXXIII. 



gi'-ant 
pierce 
yield 
bul-let 



whale'-bone 
wal'-low-nig 
rhi-noc'-e-ros 
at-tack'-ed 



ter'-ri-ble 
pur'-pose 
fright-ful 
med'-dles 



de-stroy' 
nos'-tril 
pre-fers' 
i'-vo-ry 



na'-tive her-biv'-o-rous trop'-i-cal mon'-ster 

THE RHINOCEROS AND HIPPOPOTAMUS. 

1. The two giants that you have to read 
about in this lesson, are in some things like 
the still larger giant that you read about 
in the last two lessons. All three live in the 

warmer parts 
of the world, 
chiefly in trop- 
7i ical countries : 
are all 
herb ivorous, 
and the y all 
have thick hides without hair. 

2. You would hardly think that such ugly 
and frightful looking animals lived only on 
herbs, the leaves of trees, and other things 
got from plants. They seem made to destroy 
and kill. 




\\Vv. 
^'Qokd thev 



RHINOCEROS AND HIPPOPOTAMUS. 117 

3. Yet the horn of the Rhinoceros, and 
the tusks of the Hippopotamus, are chiefly 
used for rooting or plucking up plants, 
and neither the hippopotamus nor the rhi- 




noceros ever meddles with other animals. 

4. As a rule, both animals flee from man ; 
but, as you might expect, they may both 
become very terrible when roused by being 
attacked. 



118 RHINOCEROS AND HIPPOPOTAMUS. 

5. The rhinoceros may grow to a length 
of thirteen feet, with a height of six feet. It 
mostly lives in the same kind of home as the 
elephant ; that is to say, it likes marshy for- 
ests, and is very fond of wallowing in mire. 
One kind, however, lives on grassy plains. 

6. The horn of the rhinoceros is very 




unlike that of either the cow or the rein- 
deer. When cut through, it looks some- 
what like whalebone, and it grows only from 
the skin. When the animal dies, the horn 
falls off with the skin ; and the skull, or 
bony part of the head, only shows a rough, 
thick piece of bone above which the horn 
stood. 



RHINOCEROS AND HIPPOPOTAMUS. 119 

7. Some kinds of rhinoceroses have two 
horns ; but these horns are not placed at 
the sides of the head as in other animals, but 
one behind the other. 

8. The hippopotamus is still larger than 
the rhinoceros. A large animal of the kind 
may be fifteen feet in length, and may weigh 
two and a half tons. It lives mostly in 
rivers ; and to that it owes its name, which 
means " river horse." 

9. It is a good swimmer and diver ; and 
when it swims, it mostly keeps almost the 
whole of its body under water, showing 
only its ears, eyes, and nostrils. Like other 
mammals that live chiefly in the water, it 
can close its nostrils in diving, so that no 
water can enter them. 

10. The hide of the hippopotamus is very 
thick. On the back, it is as much as an 
inch and a half in thickness. That of the 
rhinoceros is also thick, and is even tougher, 
so tough, indeed, that a common bullet will 
not pierce it. 



120 



THE GIRAFFE. 



11. A hard kind of bullet has to be made 
for the purpose of shooting this monster. 
The natives of the countries where the rhi- 
noceros lives use its hide to make shields. 
The tusks of the hippopotamus yield a fine 
white ivory. 



LESSON XXXIV. 

fawn stran'-ger gar-lops stretch 

twist shoul-ders slen'-der pret'-ty 

tongue beau'-ti-ful cu'-ri-ous gi-raffe' 

clumps any'-where cov'-er-ed quick'-ly 

THE GIRAFFE. 

1. Is there a stranger-looking animal to 

O CD 

be seen anywhere ? One might think not, 
on first seeing a Giraffe ; yet so many and 
so curious are the forms of animals, that it 
would not be right to say that even the 
giraffe is the strangest of all. 

2. No one who sees a giraffe can help 
being struck with its long neck, the small 
head at the end of it, the long, slender legs, 



THE GIRAFFE. 



121 



and the very high shoulders causing the 
back to slope so much downwards to the 
root of the tail. 




It cannot be called a beautiful animal. 
It has, indeed, a beautiful coat of a light 
fawn color, covered everywhere above the 
knees with brown spots. The eyes, too, are 



3. 



122 THE GIRAFFE. 

large and fine ; but the shape of the animal 
spoils its beauty. 

4. Is there any use for this very long 
neck ? Yes ; there is. It is by means of 
that long neck that the animal is able to 
reach the food on which it likes best to feed. 
The giraffe is an animal that chews the cud, 
like the ox or bison ; and it lives on plant 
food as all such animals do. But its food is 
not grass. It is the leaves of trees, leaves 
that grow high above the ground. 

5. Giraffes live in small troops in very 
dry parts of Africa, where there is very lit- 
tle grass, but where there are clumps of 
trees here and there. By means of its long 
neck, the giraffe can reach leaves twenty 
feet above the ground ; and these it nips 
off with its long tongue, which it can twist 
round the small twigs. • 

6. It hardly ever feeds on grass, and in- 
deed cannot easily pick up anything from 
the ground. In order to do so, it has to 
stretch out its forelegs as wide apart as it 
can, and then to lower its neck. 



THE CAMEL. 



123 



7. You will see that the giraffe has small 
horns, but these are not like those of the cow 
or bison. They are not covered with horn, 
but are made of bone covered with skin and 
hair, like the rest of the body. 

8 The giraffe can run pretty quickly; but 
it never trots, it always gallops. In doing 
so, its long neck, which it nearly always holds 
stiff and upright, keeps swaying from side to 
side like a long pole. 





LESSON 


XXXV. 




loose 


creat'-ure 


up'-wards 


ac-count' 


smooth 


ug'-li-ness 


jut'-ting 


en-a'-bles 


cam/- el 


dis'-tan-ces 


car '-a- van 


parch'-ed 


shag'-gy 


yer-low-ish 


marsk'-es 


cush'-ion 


bur'-den 


un-grace'-ful 


for'-wards 


swor-len 



THE CAMEL. —1. 

1. No one who has seen a Camel could 
think that the giraffe is the strangest-look- 
ing of all animals. What living creature 
is more unshapely than this ? Everything 
about it seems ugly. 



124 



THE CAMEL 



2. Look at its broad, swollen feet, its 
thick joints ; its long neck, first jutting for- 
wards, and then rising upwards in a very 




gsi 



ungraceful manner ; the ill-shaped head, with 
the long loose lips ; and above all look at the 
great hump on its back. 



THE CAMEL. 125 

3. Even its color has little beauty in it. 
It is a plain yellowish brown ; and the hair 
is in some places short and pretty smooth, 
but in other places it forms shaggy tufts. 

4. But in spite of all this ugliness, no 
animal is more highly prized by the people 
among whom it is found. There is no ani- 
mal better fitted for the life it leads ; and on 
that account the people of the countries to 
which it belongs, would find it as hard to live 
without the camel as the Lapps without the 
reindeer. 

5. How different are the homes of these 
two animals ! In the one case, a country of 
snow in winter and marshes in summer ; in 
the other case, a country in which there is 
only burning heat all the year round, in which 
rain never, or hardly ever, falls, and in which 
the soil is a parched sand. 

6. In that sandy country, the camel is 
almost the only beast of burden. No other 
animal can be used to carry loads for long 
distances across the desert. The desert is 



126 THE CAMEL. 

crossed by large companies of men with 
laden camels, forming what are known as 
caravans. When people are divided from 
each other by broad deserts, it is by means 
of such caravans that they carry on their 
trade. Hence the camel is often called " the 
ship of the desert." 

7. Almost everything that has been pointed 
out as strange and ugly in the animal helps 
in fitting it to serve this use ; and there are 
other things, still to be mentioned, that do 
the same. 

8. You were asked to look at its feet. 
Look at them again, and let us see how 
these help it to lead its desert life. If you 
look carefully, you will see that each foot 
has two hoofs, and you know therefore that 
the camel chews the cud, and is an herbivo- 
rous animal. 

9. But how different this foot is from that 
of the cow or giraffe. The hoofs in the 
camel make up only a small part of the 
foot ; the greater part is a soft pad or cush- 



THE CAMEL. 127 

ion, with a tough skin underneath. That 
enables the camel to walk without pain for 
a long time over the sand of the desert, and 
to stand its burning heat. 



LESSON XXXVI. 



fare 


car'-a-van 


swor-len 


scarce 


wart 


pres'-ence 


con-tent" 


cam'-el 


scent 


al-to-geth'-er 


en-a'-ble 


dessert 


quart 


her-biv'-o -rous 


stom-ach 


flab'-by 



THE CAMEL.— 2. 

1. As the camel is herbivorous, you may 
ask where can it get food in the desert. 
Well, it is content with very poor fare. 
Large tracts in the desert are without any 
plants at all ; and where plants do grow, they 
are very often prickly shrubs, with thorns 
strong enough to pierce the sole of a man's 
boot when he treads upon them. 

2. Yet upon these shrubs the camel can 
make a good meal, and the thorns seem to 
do no harm to its mouth or tongue. Grass, 



128 



THE CAMfiL. 



where it ctoes grow, is often very short, yet 
the camel can nibble it with its long, loose 
lips. 

3. Where food is very scarce, the camel 
can go longer than any other four-footed 

beast without 
any food at all, 
and what ena- 
bles it to do so 
is that great 
hump on its 
back. 

4. That hump 
is nearly all fat. 
When the camel 
is well fed, the 
hump is large 
and firm ; but when it has been much in 
want of food, the hump becomes loose and 
flabby, and begins to hang down. Some- 
times it almost goes away altogether, be- 
cause the fat in it takes the place of food, 
and is used up in keeping the animal alive. 




THE CAMEL. 



129 



5. The camel must drink too, and water is 
as scarce in the desert as food is. But the 
camel can go as long without water as with- 
out food, and the reason for this is a very 
strange one. In the walls of that part of 
the stomach of the camel into which the 
food is first taken, there are a great many 
little bags or 

cells all in 
rows. 

6. There 
may be eight 
h u n d r e d or 
more of these ; 
and each of 
them can be 
closed at the mouth, very much as a bag is 
closed by means of a string passed through a 
fold round the mouth and drawn tight. Now, 
in these cells the camel can store up water 
for use. in times when it cannot get water 
to drink. 

7. It can store up five or six quarts at 




130 THE CAMEL. 

once, and then it can live for more than a 
week without a fresh supply. The camel can 
tell the presence of water a great way off by 
the scent, and it takes in a fresh store when- 
ever it can. 

8. When resting or being; loaded, the 
camel lays itself clown on its belly with 
the legs turned in under the body. So 
that it may not be hurt in so doing, its 
breast and the knees of its forelegs have 
hard patches or warts over them; and it is 
the warts of the knees that give such a 
swollen and ugly look to the joints. 

9. A camel load weighs over 500 pounds, 
so that it would take 5,000 camels to carry 
as much as a single large ship. From that 
you can see how much better for trade the 
ship of the sea is than the " ship of the 
desert." A large caravan has, in fact, thou- 
sands of camels. 



THE CAMEL. 



131 



LESSON XXXVII. 



breed 


un-ea'-sy 


slen'-der 


rap-id 


cream 


hand'-ful 


jolt'-ing 


draught 


stretch 


care'-ful-ly 


car'-ri-er 


rear'-ed 


yoked 


nour'-ish-ing 


jour'-ney 


wov-en 



THE CAMEL. — 3. 

1. Some breeds of camels are carefully 
reared to be used only for riding on, as 
with us some breeds of horses are reared 
for racing or hunting. Such camels are of 
a finer kind than the common camel. Their 
legs are longer and more slender, and so their 
speed is much greater. 

2. A riding camel will s;o at the rate of 
eight or ten miles an hour, and on a long 
journey is a much more rapid animal than 
the horse, for it can keep up this rate for 
twenty hours at a stretch. The camel can 
thus make a journey of nearly two hundred 
miles in a day. 

3. It is one of these camels, mounted by a 
letter-carrier, that is shown in the cut on 



132 



THE CAMEL. 



page 128. and there you can see how the 
camel is ridden. 

4. The gait of the animal causes so much 
jolting that the rider's seat is a very uneasy 
one. It has been said, that one reason for 
calling the camel the ship of the desert is 
that people are sometimes u sea-sick" when 

they first ride 
on one. 

5. To the 
people of des- 
ert countries, 
the camel is of 
use in other 
ways. Its 
flesh is seldom eaten indeed, because the ani- 
mal is of too much value to be killed for food. 
But the milk of the camel is very nourishing, 
and when mixed with meal is a dish which 
the people of the desert like very much. 

6. A kind of butter is made by shaking 
the cream in a goatskin bag. To us the 
taste of this butter would not seem at all 




THE CAMEL. 133 

good, but the people who make it are very 
fond of it. 

7. The long hair of the camel is spun 
and woven into cloth. Ai certain times of 
the year, the camel sheds its hair as many 
animals do ; and then the long hair can easily 
be plucked off in liandfuls, without doing any 
harm to the camel. 

8. The camel that is shown in our wood- 
cut has only a single hump, and it is that 
kind of camel that is mostly used as a beast 
of burden. 

9. But there is another camel which has 
two humps. It belongs to the desert parts 
in the middle of Asia, and is more used as a 
beast of draught than as a* beast of burden. 
That means that it is yoked to carts instead 
of being used to carry loads. 



134 THE BOA CONSTRICTOR. 



LESSON XXXVIII. 



prey 


trop'-i-cal 


ser'-pent 


throat 


fangs 


swaF-low 


cu-ri-ous 


stretch 


limbs 


di-gest'ed 


wrigg'-ling 


e'-qual 


height 


skel'-e-ton 


squeez -ed 


mo'-tion 



THE BOA CONSTRICTOR. 

1. The Boa Constrictor is one of the lar- 
gest of serpents or creeping animals. Such 
animals have no limbs whatever. They 
have long, round bodies, and their skeleton 
behind the head is only a long back-bone 
with ribs joined to it. 

2. They move on with a wriggling mo- 
tion ; yet they can do it with such force, 
that it is not easy to pull even a small 
snake backwards. You will wonder how this 
can be. And the reason is very curious. 

3. Instead of having limbs to move, the 
serpent can move all its ribs forwards and 
backwards. In moving them forwards, a 
number of plates or scales that stretch from 
side to side on the under part of the body, 



THE BOA CONSTRICTOR. 



13-3 




136 THE BOA CONSTRICTOR. 

also move in such a way that they are all 
set on edge. The edges catch hold of the 
ground, and then the serpent can pull its 
body forwards until the scales lie flat again. 
Often, too, they draw themselves up by the 
same means into great folds or loops, and 
then they move all the more quickly. 

4. The serpent that you are to read about 
in this lesson lives in tropical countries. Its 
home is the tropical part of America, It 
grows to a length of twenty feet or more, 
which is equal to three or four times the 
height of a tall man. Its color is a rich 
brown, with rows of black and white spots 
on the back. Like all serpents, it has its 
body covered with scales of a smaller size 
than those which are under the body and 
joined to the ribs. 

5. Though the}^ have a backbone, ser- 
pents can twist and wind their long bodies 
almost as freely as worms do, which have 
no bones at all. Some of them make use of 
this power to kill their prey, and the boa is 
one of these. 



THE BOA CONSTRICTOR. 



137 




6. It coils 
itself two or 
three times 
round an ani- 
mal which it 
means to eat ? 
and h a v i n g 
done 
so, 
draws 
the coils tighter and 
tighter with very 
great force, until the 
poor thing is not only 
killed, but squeezed 
into a form in which the 
boa can swallow it whole. 
For all serpents have that strange 
way of taking their food. Their 
teeth are of no use for dividing 
up what they eat. They are merely 
strong, sharp pegs all pointing back- 
ward-. SO that an animal once caught 



138 



THE BOA CONSTRICTOR. 



by them has no chance of slipping away 



again. 



7. The serpent takes hold of its prey by an 
end thin enough to be taken into its mouth, 
and slowly forces it down its throat. And 
the bodies swallowed are often much thicker 
than the serpent itself. For the bones of 
the skull in the serpent are all loose, so 
that the mouth as well as the body of the 
serpent can stretch a great 
deal. The boa. though only 
a few inches in thickness, 
can swallow animals as large 
as a sheep or a goat. 
8. After a great meal like 
this, the boa lies as if in a deep sleep for 
weeks ; and not till its heavy meal has been 
fully digested, does it wake up again. While 
in this state it is of course very easily killed. 
9. Some serpents kill their prey by means 
of poison, which they squeeze into wounds 
made by long teeth called fangs ; but the 
boa is not one of these. 




THE CONDOR. 



139 



LESSON XXXIX. 

shelf car'-ri-on ac-count' pre-fer' 

range wheel'-ing soar'-ing drear'-y 

swoop stretch'- ed meas'-ure ar-most 

height ev'-er-y-where grace'-ful cer'-tain 

THE CONDOR. 

1. The Condor is the largest of flying 
birds. It is more than four feet in length 
from the tip of its beak to the end of its 
tail ; and its wings, when stretched out to 
their full length, measure about nine feet, 
sometimes a good deal more than that. 

2. Like the other animals you have lately 
been reading about, it lives in tropical coun- 
tries ; yet its home is very much unlike what 
you would think from the account of these 
countries which you read in a former lesson. 
The condor is a bird of the highest moun- 
tains ; and you will remember being told, 
that even in tropical countries there is 
snow at a great height. 

3. Now, if you look at South America 



140 



THE CONDOR. 



on the 'globe, you will see in the west a 
line or range of mountains running the 
whole way down from north to south. 




These mountains are almost everywhere so 
high that the snow never melts all away 
from their tops, and it is there that the 
condor has its home. 



THE CONDOR. 141 

4. Among these silent and dreary heights, 
where hardly any other sign of life is to be 
seen, where the thundering of falling masses 
of snow from time to time is almost the only 
sound that is to be heard, the condor lays its 
eggs on a bare shelf or rock, without building 
any nest. 

5. Its food is the flesh of animals. It is a 
carnivorous bird, like the eagle and the hawk. 
Like them it has a strong hooked beak bv 
means of which it can tear the flesh of its 
prey. Mostly it prefers the flesh of animals 
that have already been killed ; but sometimes 
it will attack a living animal, first blinding 
it by tearing out its eyes, and then killing it 
with blows of its beak. 

6. The food of the condor cannot of 
course be got near to its home. But the 
bird has a keen eye, and from its lofty 
standpoint can make out a dead animal a 
very great way off. It then swoops swiftly 
down, and feeds itself on the carrion. 

7. Often the condor can be seen very high 



142 THE CONDOR. 

in the air, nearly six miles as some say, soar- 
ing over a certain spot in graceful curves. 
It may then be watching a dying animal, or 
a four-footed beast of prey attacking a weaker 
animal, for a share of which it waits. 

8. Sometimes the condors are in small 
flocks, and the sight of such a flock wheel- 
ing round and round any spot has been 
found to be well worth watching. One who 
watched them closely states that he does 
not remember ever to have seen these birds 
flap their wings, except when rising from the 
ground. They seem to glide up and down 
merely by moving the bead and neck. For 
hours they may be seen wheeling and gliding 
in this graceful manner, over mountain and 
river. 

9. When on the ground, it is often easy to 
get near a condor and to kill it ; for it cannot 
rise into the air unless it has room to run 
some length along the ground ; and the men 
who are after them always try to give them 
no chance of doing so. 





TURTLES. 


14 




LESSON XL. 




hawk 


en'-e-mies 


ex-pos-ed 


par -rot 


breathe 


re-quir'-ed 


trop-i-cal 


val-u-ed 


dain'-ty 


hawks'-bill 


u'-su-al-ly 


hatch'-ed 


hook -ed 


leath'-er-y 


At-lan'-tic 


tor'-toise 


sur'-face 


pro-tect'-ed 


reF-ish-ed 


Pa-cif-ic 


pad'-dles 


am-phib'-i-ous 


fre'-quent 


cu'-ri-ous 



TURTLES. 

1. Turtles are amphibious animals like 
beavers, living partly on land, partly in the 
water. Beavers, however, have their home 
on dry ground, while turtles are nearly al- 
ways in the water. Some animals like tur- 
tles frequent rivers, as beavers do; but true 
turtles live like seals, another kind of am- 
phibious salt-water animals, in the sea. 

2. They are mostly found in tropical seas, 
not very far from land ; though sometimes 
they are to be seen hundreds of miles from 
any shore. The land which they keep near 
is usually a small island, for on the mainland 
the young are exposed to too many enemies. 

3. The shape of a turtle is very curious. 



144 



TURTLES. 



The body is very broad and rather flat, and 
most of it is protected by plates of bone, both 




above and below, those above being in the 
form of an arch. Above the bony plates on 



TURTLES. 145 

the back, there is also a horny or leathery 
covering ; and beyond this the head, limbs, 
and tail jut out. The limbs are shaped 
like paddles, and by means of them the 
turtle can swim well. 

4. Though living mostly in the sea, they 
cannot breathe under water as fish do. They 
must come to the surface to breathe, like 
whales and seals. Yet they are not mam- 
mals. They do not suckle their young with 
milk. They lay eggs not unlike those of 
hens ; and the young, when hatched, feed 
themselves. 

5. There are many sorts of turtles. They 
are all large. Some are as much as eight 
feet in length, and weigh sixteen hundred 
pounds. When found at all, they are found 
in great numbers. Near some small islands 
in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the seas 
swarm with them. 

6. Of all the many kinds of turtles, there 
are two which are much more highly prized 
by man than any others, but not for the 



146 



TURTLES. 



same reason. One of them is the green 
turtle ; and it is valued for its flesh, which 
is looked upon as a great dainty. It is called 
the green turtle on account of the color of its 













fat, and this green fat is the part that is most 
relished by those who are fond of turtle. In 
this country turtle flesh is so dear that it 
is eaten only by the rich. 



TURTLES. 147 

7. One common mode of catching the tur- 
tle is curious. Men watch for them to come 
ashore ; and then, running between the turtle 
and the sea, they turn as many as they can 
over on their backs. Thus they lie helpless 
until the men return to carry them away. 
So large is the green turtle that three men 
are often required to turn one on its back. 

8. The other kind of turtle which is highly 
prized is not eaten, for its flesh is not good; 
but its back is covered with large horny 
scales, from which the beautiful " tortoise- 
shell " is obtained. This turtle is called 
the hawksbill turtle, because its beak is 
hooked downwards like the beak of a hawk 
or that of a parrot. 



PHILIPS' 
GEOGRAPHICAL CHART 

for Elementary 'Classes. One large sheet. Size, 
68 x 54 inches. Mounted on calico, rollers, 
and varnished $5.00 

Comprises the following: — 

(«) A large Map of Great Britain and Part of the Conti- 
nent of Europe. Illustrating the various Geograph- 
ical Definitions, Political and Physical. 

(&') A large Pictorial Scene, illustrating to the eye the 
chief Features of Land and Water. 

(c) Diagrams of Schoolroom, Schoolhouse, and Ground 

Plan of School Buildings. 

(d) Mariner's Compass. 

0) Pictorial View of the Course of a River, from its Source 
to the Mouth. 

{/) Diagram illustrating method of ascertaining direction 
from the Sun — North, South. East, or West. 

(g) Map of the Globe, showing Division of Land and 
Water. 

(k) Six Typical Heads, illustrating the Races of Mankind. 

(/) The Earth in Space. 

(/) Diagram showing the Curvature of the Earth. 

The above Chart has been prepared with great care, and 
will be found extremely helpful in class teaching. 



PHILIPS' 
GEOGRAPHICAL READERS. 



THESE READERS have been most carefully prepared, 
and the publishers feel confident that in the treatment 
of the subject, the style and quality of the matter, the num- 
ber and beauty of the illustrations, the legibility and accuracy 
of the maps and diagrams, the books will be found superior 
to any other similar series, and will render the study of 
geography interesting and attractive. The series contains 
no less than 800 valuable illustrations and maps. 

1. FIRST STEPS. Parti., explaining "plans of school 

and playground, the cardinal points, and meaning 
and use of a map." With word-lists and summaries, 32c. 

2. FIRST STEPS. Part II. " The size and shape of 

the world, geographical terms simply explained and 
illustrated by reference to the map of England, and 
physical geography of hills and rivers " .... 36c. 

3. ENGLAND, Physical and Political, in a graphic 

narrative form . . . 43c. 

4. BRITISH ISLES, BRITISH NORTH AMERICA, 

and AUSTRALASIA, described in a series of well 
written sketches of voyages, travels, etc 65c. 

5. EUROPE, Physical and Political, described in a 

series of narratives of voyage and tours. With 
Appendix — Latitude and longitude ; day and night ; 
the seasons 75 c - 

6. THE WORLD. A series of voyages and travels in 

Asia, Africa, America, and Polynesia. With Appen- 
dix—Interchange of productions; circumstances 
which determine climate 86c 



THE INFORMATION READERS. 



THIS SERIES is significant of the profound change which 
school methods and theories have undergone within the 
past decade. 

The Information Readers are issued in response to the increas- 
ing demand for reading-books that, while enlarging the vocabulary 
of the young learner, shall tell him something of the busy work-a- 
day world around him. 

i. FOODS AND BEVERAGES, by E. A. Beal, M.D. 
Contains reading lessons on the various kinds of Foods 
and their hygienic values; on Grains, Fruits, and useful 
Plants, with elementary botanical instruction relating 
thereto; on the effects of Stimulants; and on other com- 
mon subjects of interest and importance to all, old and 
young. 281 pages. Cloth 60c. 

2. EVERY-DAY OCCUPATIONS, by H. Warren 

Clifford, S.D. Quantities of useful facts entertainingly 
told, relating to work and workers. How Leather is 
Tanned; How Silk is Made; The Mysteries of Glass 
Making, of Cotton Manufacture, of Cloth Making, of Ship 
and House Building; the Secrets of the Dyers' Art and 
the Potters' Skill — all and more are described and ex- 
plained in detail with wonderful clearness. 330 pages. 
Cloth 60c. 

3. MAN AND MATERIALS, by Wlf. G. Parker, M.E. 

Shows how man has raised himself from savagery to civil- 
ization by utilizing the raw material of the earth. Brings 
for the first time the wonderful natural resources of the 
United States to the notice of American children. The 
progress of the Metal-Working arts simply described and 
very attractively illustrated. 323 pages. Cloth .... 60c. 

4. MODERN INDUSTRIES AND COMMERCE, by 

Robert Lewis, Ph.D. Treats of commerce and the dif- 
ferent means of conveyance used in different eras. High- 
ways, Canals, Tunnels, Railroads, and the Steam Engine 
are discussed in an entertaining way. Other lesson sub- 
jects are Paper Manufacture, Newspapers, Electric Light, 
Atlantic Cable, the Telephone, and the principal newer 
commercial applications of Electricity, etc. 329 pages. 
Cloth 60c. 



PHILIPS' HISTORICAL READERS, 



i. STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 128 pages; 
38 Short Lessons, with numerous Explanatory Notes; 
62 beautiful Pictures, and a Map of England and Wales. 
Price, 36 cents. 

These stories from English history form one of the brightest and most 
attractive Reading Books ever published. Each story is not only well writ- 
ten, but also beautifully illustrated. The portrait of Her Majesty the Queen, 
which forms the frontispiece, is extremely fine. Altogether, this book is an 
admirable introduction to the study of English history. 

2. EARLY ENGLAND, from Pre-historic Times to the 

Year 1154. 192 pages ; 54 interesting Lessons with useful 
Notes ; 94 attractive pictures ; 6 finely engraved maps. 
Price, 42 cents. 

In this beautifully illustrated and well-written little book, the story of the 
making and founding of the nation is graphically sketched. The opening 
section contains vivid pen and pencil pictures (based on the latest antiquarian 
and geological research) of life in that country in pre-historic times — the 
periods of the men of the caves, the stone-hatchet men, the bronze-workers, etc. 

3. MIDDLE ENGLAND, from 1154 to 1603. 2 5 6 pages; 

Price, 62 cents. 

In this book, the history of the country is continued from the reign of 
Henry II., when the welding of Saxons and Normans into one compact 
people commenced, to the end of the reign of Elizabeth, when the modern, 
social, political, and scientific ideas had at last been fully thought out. The 
aim has not been to give merely the " lives " of the kings and queens, or the 
records of war and victory, but to present, clearly and accurately, the real 
history of our English forefathers during what may be justly termed the 
decisive period of English history. 

4. MODERN ENGLAND, from 1603 to 1883. 272 pages. 

Price, 62 cents. 

In this book, the great events of the last 280 years are graphically and 
succinctly described and fully illustrated. The high educative value of good 
pictures has been constantly kept in view, and the number and beauty of the 
illustrations form one of the characteristic features of the Series. The 
greatest possible care has been taken to preserve an absolutely impartial tone 
throughout the Series. 



NATURAL HISTORY READERS. 
By the Rev. J. G. WOOD, M.A. 

Author of " Homes Without Hands," etc. 



THIS SERIES OF READERS is carefully graduated, 
both as to matter and language; the list of words for 
spelling is selected with due regard to actual experience of 
children's difficulties, and is therefore in every way fitted to 
serve the purpose of ordinary reading-books. 

Nothing more readily interests children than animal life. 
It will be noticed that in the lower readers no animals are 
introduced but those that are more or less familiar to children ; 
the subjects are treated in such a manner as to lead the wav 
naturally to the scientific classification introduced in the 
higher books. 

FIRST READER. 

Short and simple stories about Common Domestic 
Animals 25c. 

SECOND READER. 

Short and simple stories about Animals of the 
Fields. Birds, etc 36c. 

THIRD READER. 

Descriptive of familiar Animals and some of their 
wild relations 50c. 

FOURTH READER. 

The Monkey Tribe, the Bat Tribe, the Mole, Ox. 
Horse, Elephant, etc 65c. 

FIFTH READER 

Birds, Reptiles, Fishes, etc 65c 

SIXTH READER. 

Molluscs. Crustacea, Spiders, Insects, Corals, Jelly 
Fish, Spongc>. etc 65c. 







0005 408 706 




